Question for those of you who "want to raid"

Ahem.

You win the Internets for today.

INC ----->a Wall of text!<------ Assist me

While I think that mobilization and organization are both important aspect of a raiding guild, I don't think they should be the end all be all of a guild's success. The way it is right now a guild getting a shot at a raid target is 100% determined by how much time it takes 72 of them to run to said target. I think the difficulty of said boss encounter should be part of the challenge as well. The recent changes made to the raid bosses are a step in the right direction, but they get diminished a lot when you can't even make out Vox's model in the pile of character models on top of her.

I've got to experience first hand racing against TL this past week-end, and I can't say it was an unpleasant experience (Although i'm not a fan of tactics such as training or leap frogging.The Inny race where we suddenly went from fighting 1 drake to fighting 5 was quite interresting). We lost though and even if i'm saying I had fun this week-end I can see myself getting tired of always losing as it gets harder and harder to close the gap gear-wise. I can foresee others feeling the same way.

I'm going to assume those people are seeing what the raiding scene looks like on the general channels and the forums and they don't like what they see. It doesnt take a rocket scientist to see the current raiding scene has problems, despite your inability to see it first hand.

I'm currently part of the aforementioned 5 guild but I'll answer this anyway. It already has been mentioned that rotations are not really possible, somebody is bound to not respect them because of RMT and the value of kronos. Even if no CoF or wichever other item has not been sold yet, it's bound to happen in the future when the people currently wearing them replace them. I think it could be a great alternative to instance thought. The problem is that TL is currently getting about 85% of the raid targets. Even if the lesser guilds decided to go on a rotation, there is just not enough crumbs for the rest of us to share, we have to take what we can.

I'm trying to stay hopeful, but it is very hard. We managed to sneak CT twice (We got MAD loots on the 2nd one btw ) Like I mentioned before, racing for the first time was fun. Spending a whole evening and achieve nothing is ok once in a while, every night, not so much. Raiding content is way too scarce at the moment. I'm hoping the earlier Kunark unlock will help, but ex-Fippy players seem to think it won't. At this point i'm realizing instancing is a far fetch at best. What I would like to change? I'm guessing the overall attitude of people. I get that DPS race rules all. What I don't get is why we have to train each other and spam stupid stuff in /ooc. Leap frogging is also pretty rude in my eyes. I could really see myself appreciate some form of competition if it would be healthy. Right now it pretty much is who can pull out the most dirty tricks from their sleeves gets to see loot. I see a lot of TL members complaining that they get undeserved hate. I think you guys really do. The server rules are so ruthless,it leaves a bad taste in everyone's mouth but the ones getting the lewtz. On all the other servers I played, the top guilds always inspired respect and awe. On RF, the top guilds inspire jealousy and disgust.

I agree.

I agree with much of what you are saying. But in practice you need the very BASICS of mobilization and organization to even think of entering the raid scene. As it stands now, even if the bosses were instanced so every guild could have its own raid, they would struggle badly to be successful if the bosses weren't tank and spank.

Most guilds can't do the basics. Can you name a non-TL guild that can get 72 people together and ready to pull by their scheduled raid time? Most of them don't start pulling till an hour after the scheduled time. That's an hour cut off the time they are spending raiding.

We're not talking about hardcore stuff here. Its pretty simple, move to the meeting place and already have the drink, food, and buffs loaded. Then the leaders invite to the groups, set up the raids, shuffle players around based on class/role, and you're ready to go. That process should take no longer than 15 minutes if everyone shows up 15 minutes prior.

But...
They don't show up 15 minutes prior.
They don't show up with food and water.
They don't show up with reagents.
The leaders don't know how to shuffle classes and roles.
They don't have VOIP.

We're talking about players taking simple actions:

1. Buying stuff from a vendor.
2. Zoning into a designated zone.
3. Being punctual.
4. Having basic knowledge of classes.

What is so 'hardcore' about any of that?

Most guilds on Ragefire struggle with all of that above. But they want more accessible raids. I don't know how the raids could be any more accessible without a GM teleporting a guild on top of the boss, setting the bosses HP to 1, and telling them to just get a hit in for the loot.

If they can't do the basics, then they can't even hope try to do a boss who's spawn is unknown. Who's mechanics have been buffed. Nevermind the fact that they have to compete with another guild.

We're also talking about people who struggle to form a 6 man group also. Its pretty crazy how inept most players are in the game. And they want to talk about having a shot at a dragon.

I think this is very sad. I don't know you, you don't know me. But because we're in the opposite side of a competition, we have pre-established opinions of each other wich I'm sure are not accurate. I would much rather have a friendly relation with the people I interract with on Ragefire. I'm not logging in Everquest to hate on people, that concept itself is absurd. If you want to have a love/hate relationship, I don't think Everquest is the best game or even genre for this.

We don't schedule raid, when we feel we have enough people to do whatever we want to do, we move. Also you mention starting pulling. Pulling what? You can't schedule any of the bosses raid so i'm going to assume you mean hate/fear. We usually just show up there unschedule and start pulling as soon as we feel we have enough people to start killing.

-We don't schedule raids.
-Food and water is not going to determine your success or failure against any of the current raid bosses.
-What reagents? Aside from pet reagents there are no reagents that i'm aware of in the game. Unless you mean Sky/Hate stones? I never once saw a mage or necro showing up without his pet because he forgot his bone chips in the bank.
-Group setups don't really matter in current content, aside from having a healer in each group there is very little group synergy currently, aside from a couple of exception.
-We use Teamspeak

So there you go, I can name one guild: Apokalypsis. Feel free to apply www.apokalypsys.us

on the contrary, old EQ is the only place they can get this, without facing real consequences from PVP.

Then you all should have no complaints about the accessibility of the current content. If you don't, then outstanding.

I fail to see the relation between the ability to organize groups or bringing fish rolls to a raid and the appreciation of the current end game scene.

Whether you like me or not, whether you have agreed with me or disagreed with me in the past, this is the conversation that has come up all the time.

A lot of people want to raid. A lot of people say they will put in the time and dedication it takes to raid. Let me very bluntly spell this out for you guys.

EverQuest is not hard. Boxing makes this game so insanely easy that it is pointless to think you min/maxing makes any difference. Your guilds need numbers. Lots of numbers. Raid mobs are DPS races. If you play a cleric: box 5 mages. If you play a tank: box 5 mages. If you play a rogue: reroll because you could be 6 mages.

If you want to raid content in the eras of Classic, Kunark, Velious, Luclin, and almost all of PoP you are going to have to sacrifice a lot. This means you will have to be on a batphone. Maybe not all guilds will run a batphone. The guilds getting all the targets DO use a batphone. Expect to be on it. You will have to wake up at 3AM on a Tuesday to kill a target. You will want to take off days of work and family time and all that other garbage so you can be on the day new content opens. If you can't accept that and do that with a very high attendance rate: Don't even consider raiding. That is the end of that.

I won't say what 3 guilds I have characters in and raid with, but I can promise you - none of those 3 guilds are willing to put in a raid rotation. We don't want to. We don't need to. We don't have to. We want gear for our characters. If Joe Rogers wants to take 3 hours after work to have dinner with his family while his guild logs on and checks for targets - Joe Rogers is going to probably miss a lot of content. If Harry Johnson can't dedicate late nights or sporadic texts telling him to get on - Harry Johnson probably won't see much content. If Buck Nasty is in a guild of 30 active players and they roll up on a target vs a guild I'm in that houses 50 actives with another 50 in dps/heal bots - Buck Nasty will be shootin' dice in Sol B for some boots instead of spending DKP on White Dragonscale Boots.

If you can't accept those realities, you are living in a dream world. Guilds and people asking to raid want instancing. I understand that. It'd be great to log on 4 nights a week for a few hours each day and raid. The reality is: unless Daybreak instances raid content and sets up instancing YOU WILL MOST LIKELY NOT BE RAIDING. This hasn't been different in the past. It won't be different in the future. The only time this will change is with instancing. Sorry to make some of you upset or get angry. The truth hurts.

There is no secret to raiding. 1 of 3 guilds I'm in doesn't have a batphone style system. People in that guild don't even know mobs spawn until the serverwide message. Players are chilling in Guk and Sol B and OOT farming while players in the other 2 guilds I'm in are waiting/camped in raid zones ready to kill.

Instancing is the only option and Daybreak said no. Wait until PoTime after the top 2-3 guilds are finished blocking other guilds with flagging. Stop paying Daybreak if you are unhappy. Not that it matters since they make a killing off Krono~

Then it won't work out for you.

You buy them or pay a shaman to craft them. They are like 154pp each, that can be made very quickly.

No, you aren't saying, "gimme! make it easy!" You guys are asking for a legitimate answer to allow scheduled raiding that most people need to progress. The people who do hardcore raid just have much different priorities with our time. It isn't our fault Dawnbreak didn't do instancing

Another post in this thread that offers nothing except observing how the game is now.

Look bro, we know how the game is. We're saying how we think the game SHOULD be. That was a really long post, probably took you some time to think about it and post it. But it doesn't even attempt to address why Everquest would be BETTER under the current system than it would under an instanced system.

Instancing is not out of the question. Holly has, in fact, said that they will instance raid content if it becomes clear that its necessary for the health of the server.

So here's your chance. Make the argument that the status quo is better for the health of the server than instancing raid content. So far no one has succeeded in making a compelling argument against instancing. Will you be the one?

Edit: I should add, that the list of anti-instancers who have come around to saying "okay instancing is fine" is growing by the day. Frenzic, Gregolo, Esper, and others have all stated pretty openly that there's no reason not to instance raid content (expac back or 50/50 per expac). They think we're stupid, but they're on board.

DHS had our first "goof off" raid in the Hole up and going with first pulls 11 min past scheduled start.
Our first night of real raiding we were going at 9:02pm - 2 min past scheduled.

Based on that criteria assuming we improve at all on raid #3 we're amongst the most hardcore of the hardcore.

This is something that did not exist in this era and certainly wasn't required to raid this content - claiming it as a necessity is HILARIOUS to my nostalgias.

People actually reading text is how I was on the cutting edge of beating every single piece of content from Nagafen up to ZMTZ. (although not including him - damn BiC drama!)

Don't ruin my nostalgias with your "Have to VOIP" nonsense. If you feel the need to VOIP, you're bad at EQ. TS and such does have service interruptions at times, if you can't handle basics without it, GG you're horrible.

Don't get pissy with me because you don't agree. This wasn't an observation. I stated facts. The game HAS been like that. These servers of magical times where 10 guilds shared mobs on rotation are very very rare. I will state the only fix. Instancing. Without instancing, raiding for most of the population won't happen. Do I think it is right? No. I think Holly made a huge mistake with what she said. If your guild can get the numbers and power to kill a target - grats on loot. Sadly Daybreak doesn't think so.

Also: VOIP doesn't matter. I mute most of the players in vent and TS to cut down on the god awful chat.

Nobody thinks you're stupid. There is just nothing to say other than Daybreak made a decision. What else do you want done? Plenty of people posted in this thread what is needed to raid currently. Either grab the game by the balls and go hardcore or have all the casual guilds who want content to spam petitions into Daybreak.

1. No guild has a monopoly on raid targets at the moment. There are multiple guilds getting kills across the board, including PoSKy which has some of the best loot in classic(Stuff that people still use even in VoA+). So, with 5 different guilds getting loot, what is stopping another or 5 others from trying to push in and do the same thing?

2. Other servers who have had this same "problem" have been just fine. Even in the long term.

1. I don't care how many guilds are fighting over the content. If its 1, 10, or 20, even 50. You're still looking at thousands of players who never get a chance to see Nagafen. Nevermind the other 49 who didn't get it that spawn, and probably won't the next 20 spawns either. Diversity of raid guilds is not the problem. The problem is that not everyone that wants it has access to content.

2. "Fine" maybe. But what's wrong with aiming for better? I'm not saying TLP 3.0 won't still be here 2-3 years from now. Heck, Vulak is still here with all 11 people that still play there. My argument is that instancing is BETTER. So better than fine... lets go with good.

So far we've had 6 progression servers without instancing. What's the harm in making ONE instanced? So far, no one has come up with one.

SOME other servers - not all.

But - Mah Nostalgias!

And... and... I heard from this guy that shines my shoes that people finally realize that there was instancing around GoD and quit. [Somehow they'd missed LDoN or something]

I loved LDoN and, at least on Nameless, LDoNs were WILDLY popular. Used to be that you'd sit for hours on end waiting for a poe or tables group to open up. Then LDoN and suddenly errbody be doing dungeon crawls.

The only problem were those stupid collect missions when the quest loots wouldn't drop and there'd be one mob up left in the entire instance when you ran out of time.

Me too - I'm actually one of those nuts that maxed out the charm. (on multiple servers/chars)