Raid Lockouts - Shorter Timers?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by LockridgeUK, Dec 11, 2017.

  1. LockridgeUK Journeyman

    My issue is the raid lockout timers. For a very short period of time in the past several weeks (Nov./Dec/ 2017), the period for the raid lockouts was reduced (cut in half I believe). This was really great! However, this reduction was not permanent.

    I have read what I could find reasons for and against shorter duration periods for lockout timers. Particularly with new content, I understand not having lockout periods so short that everyone who raids is fully equipped with new raid gear too quickly. While this may be a bit paternalistic in nature in, at least, part, I'm not against such a strategy.

    But what is the "right" lockout period? A week? 4 days? Less? More? Should the lockout periods be the same or different for the latest expansion vis-a vis older content?

    For sake of discussion, I propose that older content have raid lockout periods of 3 days, and the newest expansion have raid lockout periods of 4 days.

    Please add your thoughts, as I believe DayBreak reads these forums and values them as a source of feed back.

    Belem
    Tunare Server
  2. Thrillho Augur

    The problem with changing these around is that you're dealing with a prime number day week. Changing the lockout timer to 3 days isn't going to help - raid Monday, your next raid is Thursday, which is fine, but following that your next raid is Sunday. Now you're off your schedule and the reduced lockout doesn't help. If you're raiding 7 days a week, that's fine. I would think most raid forces are raiding set schedules though.

    Half days don't make a difference either. 4 days or 4.5 days, you're still raiding on day 5 (or rather, day 8).

    Practically any reasonable duration is going to conflict with itself after multiple weeks. Even increasing the time to 5-6 days wouldn't impact many raid forces, as it's still only one win per week (this would impact people though if you win later in your schedule you can't attempt again until later in your schedule).

    If the timers are changed to round numbers (3, 4, 5 days), having it be reduced by an additional hour would be helpful. If I start at 7PM on Monday and take 45 minutes to finish a raid, I don't want to have to start at 7:45PM on Thursday for a 3 day lockout. And then 8:30PM Sunday. And so on. Reducing it by an hour would let you keep your regularly scheduled time, regardless of the day. You could even gain time. But really, we have that now: 5 days less 0.5 days. We can keep the same time we raid, and raid every 5 days.
  3. Ofearl Slayer of all things Stupid

    Dont win any raids and never have a lockout...

    Lock outs are fine as is. Not like some guild will do all RoS and EoK in one night. As is you can knock out TBM today, EoK the next night then work RoS the next few nights till they get to Farm status.
  4. Metanis Bad Company

    Raid lockouts should be no more than 23.5 hours. If you want to hammer the same event every night of the week then more power to you.
  5. Goodn Augur

    To have a discussion, you need to state some reasons why raid lockouts should be 4 or 3 days. You just made a statement. There are plenty of statements in the forums.

    And for the record, I pretty much agree with Thrillho as to the week-based raiding schedule and the difficulties having any reduction smaller than 6 days working with a 7 day schedule ultimately. I suspect that the longer timer probably helps prevent burnout more than it hurts from lack of being able to do more.
    Yinla likes this.
  6. LockridgeUK Journeyman

    To put it simply, shorter raid lockouts would allow one to repeat the raids more quickly. I did not go into gory detail for my "straw horse" proposal, relying on common sense, really, to support the general idea of a reduction of some sort.

    Outside of technical impossibility or difficulty, lockout timers are to a great extent arbitrary and paternalistic anyway. Is DB's limiting me how often I can repeat a task or raid supported by technical reasons, or based on a business model, the support for which I won't have the detailed information? This thread is to directed to having that discussion.

    As to Thrillho's point, perhaps there should be no lockout timers? This would allow the players to decide how often they wish to play the game. Having no, or shorter, lockout timers would not prohibit those who wanted to run raids only once a week, let's say, from doing so. However, it would allow the flexibility to repeat the raids when the players wanted to, and not based on an artificial obstruction. Thus, Thrillho's objection is spurious...
  7. Goodn Augur

    Great! Now we can have a discussion. BTW, full disclosure. I am not a raider. I occasionally will Open Raid so any reduction in lockout timers could only help me because (a) more chances for Open Raids since timers would be less of an issue and (b) more raids raiding = more empty zones for me to pillage.

    But I have read the forums for a long time and I just haven't seen a real push to change lockouts from a majority of the long time raiders that post. Beside what I see on Xegony, I tend to base what the raiding community leaning is on the collection of these posts. There will be one or two around a new expansion, and then it dies down. I'm not sure I have ever seen a Dev post about shorter lockouts.

    Can I ask...have you surveyed your guild to see how many are in favor of shorter lockouts (barring the immediate time after an expansion release of course)? What is your normal raid schedule? If lockouts were shorter, would you raid more days during the week?

    I think the answers to those have to be huge majority, mumble, and yes definitely before you can say you really show a strong reason to change. You might have that, but you haven't told us yet.

    Roughly 5.5 day timers have been in EQ for raid targets for a looooooooong time. I think you are going to have to come up with some real strong reasons for a switch and I don't think you have that yet. All I hear is "I'm being limited theoretically so it should change" which I believe is currently 0 for 9 gazillion as a good enough reason for the Devs for a change.
  8. Bigstomp Augur

    One thing to remember is shorter lockouts mean when multiple events are in a single expedition shorter lockouts mean less time to try to beat that deeper in raid without having to re-clear the early raids.

    (This seems to be less of an issue now though)
  9. CrazyLarth Augur

    could be an issue with Deep raids. Never having the time to learn them.