Avatar Spawn System Detailed

Thanks for the information!

Any chance that AB and Everfrost could be moved to 12pm to 12am PST to accommodate for the Euro time zone guilds that have killed Avatars on those servers? I can't really comment if other servers have Euro time zone guilds that have done anything. Good to see Unrest and Oasis accomidating to the late night and Asia/Australian time zone guilds that are heavy on those servers.

So now the Devs are catering only to the people who read official forums? Lol..

Neat. Glad the times were included. Now any rumor that the system is broken can be dispelled relatively easily. Inb4 guilds miss avatar spawns and claim they are spawning outside the windows

I also learned that Russians are bad at abbreviations. How is MSK Moscow Standard Time? Where did that K come from?

Appreciate the post Kander,

Couple of questions:

- So there is no weekly "reset" but rather a sliding 7 day window where you can't have more than 6 avatars, correct?

- All avatars for the 12 hour window (2 or 3 of them) are supposed to spawn at the same time, right? Not sure if that's working as intended. We had 2 avatars spawn on 7/31. Sullon spawned before raid at 5pm PST but Drinal wasn't spotted until towards the end of our raid at 8:30pm PST. It's possible that we just missed Drinal since we don't know all the possible locations but we were searching quite a bit.

I'd imagine Immersion and Transcendence think it is a very good idea so that they could actually have a shot at avatars Especially Transcendence being as they've actually killed every avatar prior to the GU.

How would we go about that?

For example, Unrest raid times would be more indicative of 5pm to 5am PST.

I imagine the guild leaders of said guilds being excluded would have to PM or post on these forums with their raid times. Obviously, short of a 24 hour window, some people would be excluded from a full window during raid time. It's just making the best of the system while still giving people time to sleep

Maybe start with a mail poll about raid times.

In the interest of honesty, I should point out that Transcendence on Everfrost is not a Euro guild. They're Asian times. The way it's currently set up, Tranny will get about 45% of the avatars without contest (anything after about 12:30 a.m. EST), and the other guilds on server will compete for 55% of them. AD raids until midnight EST, but we can sometimes get enough people together if something spawns in the half hour after our raid ends (which is why I gave an extra 5% to the US guilds' split).

So the way it's set up right now, it's pretty fair if you only consider AD and Tranny. That said, I think it should be changed. Two other guilds (Art of War and Kindred) have killed avatars during normal US raid times recently, but no one has killed an avatar during the Asian raid times in months (the last time AD did an early morning call). With the arena offering practice opportunities, there will probably be a couple more US guilds looking for avatars soon. The current spawn window would essentially gift wrap nearly half of all avatars for a single guild, while 3-5 different guilds have to compete for the rest.

It doesn't need to be heavily weighted in favor of US guilds, but the number of guilds raiding in each time slot should be considered.

Is there a point at which which avatar to spawn next becomes 100%? I say this because 2 particular avatars have not spawned on Splitpaw since the GU went live (well 1 certainly hasn't, the other we're 98% sure).

Everfrost "Euro" guild raids from 5:30am to 8:30am pst. Changing it from 3am to 12am end time would be a worse change I think.

Well, at any rate on AB Immersion raids from 11am till 2pm PST. They have killed Avatars and do watch for them. Right now they don't even stand a chance

How does it make sense to change to the times for the entire server to please one guild?
Either open it up 24/7 or let the majority rule.

Declare one server an international server. Let the guilds that want to move there move. Let the guilds that want to move off move off.

Right now, you are either screwing certain Euro/Aussie guilds or completely catering to them on other servers. Its pretty ridiculous all around.

On Unrest, you implemented a system that effectively allows guilds to compete for 3 of 12 hours, while handing a single guild a period of completely uncontested avatars. How is that a better system?

On Everfrost we have 6 guilds that have killed 3 or more avatars (and I'm sure they'll kill more avatars as they spend more time in the arena). Five of those 6 guilds are all EST raid time guilds (raiding from 8pm to midnight EST) while one of them raids 8:30 to 11:30am EST. With the current time range set up for Everfrost, 83% of the avatar capable guilds will be competing for half of the avatars and one guild will be handed the other 50% of the avatar spawns to pull completely at leisure with no competition. If the goal of the arena and primetime window is to create a more competitive environment (which does sound fun) then the current time range fails most of the server's raiding guilds.

Or someone on Everfrost could use a call list and Transcendence would never get a single Avatar ever. It's all in perception. They are only getting Avatars handed to them because no one tries.

In agreement. Like I said, there just needs to be defined Euro/Aussie server since a 12-hour window could more reasonably cover those time zones. Just allow free moves for those guilds to move

I don't even care if its Unrest. I'd be fine moving off and competing with some other American based server for spawns rather than having a good chunk of time on a server dedicated to the ONE non-American raid guild on the server. Its not a vibrant Aussie/Asian raiding community on Unrest. Its one guild.

Alternatively, re-open it to 24 hours and eliminate any catering to anyone.

What SOE is obviously trying to do with sync'd spawning during primetime is get rid of ridiculous call times where a single guild with open schedules can monopolize all of the avatars. Fact is that most raiding guilds now are made up of normal people with families, jobs and can't do a midnight to 6am call time. I was fine with the old system and we'll adapt to the new one just fine. I was just giving feedback to Kander that his changes will not have the intended effect on at least one server unless the time range is adjusted to take into account more information about the guilds that are raiding on those servers.

People in our guild work during the day, raid in the evening and then sleep at night (for a majority). Yet we still were able to make calls and kill them at night. In fact, the "prime time" window makes it harder for people who work during the day to be available for Avatar windows.