So far FTE has been a bad experience for me.

That's high irony right there ...

This is classic EQ. BIS items can come from level 11 quests that require you to kill level 5 Bixies. You don't have to be 50 to camp high PP items. Pyzjn wants a word with you.

Maybe you just need a better attitude. Focus on the positives about the server.

I understand the sentiment but I really have to roll my eyes. Obviously the places this would be an issue are in sol b, kedge, the hole, lower guk... not random level 10 mobs that you're questing.

This is a problem without a good solution.

1. Without FTE, it's a DPS race, which isn't always going to be fair.

• For example, on my Live server there is a 120 mage perma-camping one of the level 80-ish Hardcore Heritage spawns. I don't have any characters above 99. There's not much I can do about this. I cannot win a DPS race against a 120 mage. Better luck next year.
• Would FTE be more "fair" for me? For sure. I'd at least have a chance.

2. With FTE, it's a Keyboard race, which isn't always going to be fair.

• Assume my 6-person party spends the next 9 hours camping the Frenzied Ghoul room in LGuk. We keep the area clear. During the 10th hour, the named finally spawns. I take a sip of coffee before engaging, and in that moment, a monk appears out of nowhere and attacks. There's nothing I can do, except stay put, and try again next spawn cycle. If everyone is tired and needs to log, that's a wrap.
• Would DPS race be more "fair" for us? For sure. We'd have done more damage than the monk.

Both methods have fundamental flaws.
Both methods allow for players who lack empathy to be jerks.

FTE makes it easier for individual jerks to change the outcome.
DPS race makes it easier for parties of jerks to change the outcome.

Neither of these makes the game fair, and they never will.

The alternative is you instance every zone and encounter. That solves this particular problem. But has the side effect of adding or magnifying a whole other set of problems.

For me there has been noticeable less people trying to snipe named spawns. Not a little bit less, it's almost non-existent.

Also now it's possible and frankly easy to take camps from AFK 6 boxers. The 6 boxers no longer even show up to something you're camping and try to take it either.

When a-holes can legitimately justify their behaviour because it is well within the rules you know the rules are no good, thanks to FTE.

I just hope not every future TLP will have this FTE crap, because I will never play on any server with it when 1 single a-hole can screw over whole groups so easily.

@skuz so its justified for dps racers to steamroll groups or solo players because they can ? I don't see the logic in that argument.

If you are never going to play on a server that is FTE , we will miss you ! I do believe it's going to be the blueprint for all future TLE's at least for the first few expansions. I guess you will start playing post pop ?

DPS-racing was preferable to this. It limited KSing to people who were capable of out-damaging whoever they try to KS, which automatically meant a much smaller proportion of players even had a reason to try. On top of that, there was a cost to the attempt (a bunch of mana spent) which deterred players from just casually and repeatedly trying every time the opportunity was there. As a result of this, KSing happened very rarely except for a select few RMTer hotspots like Efreeti and Chancellor.

With FTE, suddenly literally all players can KS anyone and everyone as long as they're capable of killing the mob, and since nobody can interfere, you're free to take all the time in the world instead of having to inefficiently DPS-race and potentially fail and set yourself back with nothing gained for it. All it now costs to attempt is the time it took to compete for the tag, and if you do succeed, you get to kill the mob in the most efficient way you can with no pressure.

It's a self-evident fact that there are more KSers now than before. Anyone who did it before still does it, they just had to adjust the way they do it, and some who didn't do it before are doing it now because it has been made universally accessible to all players. If you're capable of killing the mob at all, you can steal it from whoever was camping it, no matter how superior their numbers/levels/power. This'll get even worse in Kunark when all players are concentrated into the same general level range, and high-value tradeable loot becomes a staple of the game. There's like ten times as many high-value dungeon drops in Kunark as there are in classic, so that aspect of the game becomes much more prominent.

We called it ahead of time: this is not a feature that mitigates KSing, it's a feature that encourages and facilitates KSing. It may have become less surefire for some dude with six boxed mages to take a mob from whoever's camping it, but instead it has become possible for literally all players on the server to do that to anybody at all. And there weren't very many 6-boxing douchebags in the first place, so the problem was nearly non-existent as long as you stayed away from the select few slivers of content that such players sought to monopolize.

On top of that, FTE has also made gameplay more annoying. Having to wait five seconds before you can engage a newly-spawned mob feels terrible in any chain-pulling scenario, leading to constant moments of irritation that weren't there in the past. Having to type /yell in order for others to help you with a fight is also a huge nuisance, particularly if there's more than one mob. Everquest with FTE is simply a worse game than it was without it.

While camps aren't recognized in the game's rules, one would have to be an absolute idiot to deny that it's an integral part of the game and a tradition that almost all players acknowledge. Camps are as ubiquitous to the Everquest experience as rolling for named mob loot was until the advanced loot window, as opposed to group members just competing to see who can first click on the corpse. Everquest doesn't become a better game by doing away with the concept of camps and forcing everyone to be toxic towards each other. The fact that they chose not to enforce camps via GM intervention doesn't somehow mean that the best thing for the game and its community is to do away with common decency and turning it into a contest between players.

What DPG says and what is reality does not match. Camps do exist.

Why are people doing '/ooc camp check please' instead of just waltzing in and taking everything they want/can?

Because people are respecting camps. Not 100% of players but the vast majority. DPG states they do not exist so they don't have to deal with KS tickets and I get that. People can sort that out themselves. And guess what, they do. FTE is a barrier in this regard and that's what people are complaining about.

Funny cuz FTE is doing exactly what we all said would be terrible about it. We still get ksed just in a easier way. Now all it takes is ONE toxic person to ruin a whole groups game time instead of a group of bots or whatever they are that day. Kunark will also be a fiasco. In a way if this is the future of TLP going forward its a good thing for a lot of us veterans, so we can finally cut the cord.

Players may say camps exist but they will get no assistance from DBG in enforcing them. And if players try to take matters into their own hands to enforce camps they could be the ones getting punished instead of the people they accuse of trying to steal their camp.

I respect the personal opinion , there is a large portion of the community that does not agree.

There is even a larger reddit population that does not agree with you either.

I was very concerned about the new mechanics when they first hit Test, but they seem to have worked all the things that concerned me. I'm having no problem solo, grouped, or raiding. If you're having a problem, then it's a YOU problem, not a system problem.

At least when it is a DPS race a group has a chance vs a lone puller, and group vs group is at least a chance to fight back, FTE removes that entirely.

Groups vs solo players? That's not even a good argument why does a solo player think he has any rights over a group? EQ is a group game & always has been, any player soloing knows they are not competetive with a whole group, either work around groups or go form a group of your own.
Just because your class is capable of soloing doesn't mean it should expect to always be able to or that their single person playing takes priority over 5 other people who want to play.

In my opinion the FTE system is just something cooked up by Darkpaw in an attempt to reduce their Customer Service workload, but its a double-edged sword & all it does is replace one set of complaints with another, I doubt the overall workload has decreased much.

This is where we have a difference of opinion , you believe that in a group setting a group should be entitled to the content. I believe that the first person to engage has the right to compete to complete content. The entire view of KSing a mob can be viewed both ways.

You think a player can wander into an area a group has cleared and steal the named right from under their noses because he was first to tag the mob, I do not.

This debate is not on even terms.

There is no such camps and you are making assumptions in what I believe are social norms, do I respect camps ... of course . I still do not believe that another group has the right to out dps content contested or not because there able to do so.

What Contest?

FTE eliminates any opportunity to contest, it makes sniping nameds from groups not only possible but entirely undefendable for the group it supports & naturalises a toxic player behaviour, and as a way to redress that behaviour fosters a "if you steal my nameds, I steal yours" approach, amplifying that toxicity - which won't work against a purely parasitic group that is not actively camping a named itself & just positioning to steal from other groups.