From the update notes: Due to an exploit, raid zones now have a hard 2.8 day [ 2 days 20 hours] lockout timer. Timers will expire naturally and are no longer able to be reset. This will include all Velious and future Raid zones.Bwah? I can see where this is going to cause a lot of problems for casual guilds who have a 3-4 day gap in their raiding schedule: if you raid Tuesdays and Thursdays and get stuck and can't finish a zone on Thursday, it'll have evaporated by next Tuesday. There goes any chance of picking up where we left off unless we schedule a special raid day Friday or Saturday (Sunday won't work, since it's a 2d20h timer it'll expire 4 hours before raid time on Sunday). And I'm having a hard time seeing a significant exploit unless there's a bug in the code that I haven't noticed.. At most you can double up and run a zone twice in one day, but only by foregoing running it earlier. I don't see running a zone twice in a 5d16h period instead of once each 2d20h period as much of an exploit?
The main zone that would be a problem for is PoW since it is so long, but that has a longer timer so that you have the chance to progress. The other relevant zones are all pretty short so /shrug
This change is likely to kill raiding for casual forces, who are still struggling to get past that content you consider to be so easy and short slippery......Strongly agree with OP- this is a bad change. There is no reason to do this because a few guilds might be doing something fishy with timers. If something fishy is happening with timers, then fix that. Don't make it impossible for casual raid forces to complete content due to lack of time....We raid tues/thurs and our numbers are usually better on tues...It's nice to be able to clear out the easier stuff we can handle no problem on Thurs and have zone still open on Tues to work on the content that we are still struggling on. Making this change is like seeing a lightbulb needs to be changed, and instead of simply screwing in a new bulb, you tear out the old fixture and put a new one in.
My guild is none to happy about it either. We clear PoW in 1, at the very most 2 days. the new ST even faster. Everything else doesn't drop anything we remotely need unless you count ultra-rare myths from drunder. As for the bug from what I heard it was a pretty big deal. basically being able to reset zones at will, with bot teams clearing easy stuff ~20 times a day. EVERY raider is getting screwed with this and it is QUITE the big deal. I'm not surprised but saddened they would so quickly employ something this big, even if its to fix a bad exploit.
I hope this is temporary while they take time to fix whatever shenanigans were going on. Otherwise, it's a pretty nasty blow to anyone who cannot clear a raid zone in one pass. Will be pretty much fatal to any attempts to casually raid in CoE.... Want to pick up where you left off? too bad, you can't....
This sucks for everybody, not just the lower-end guilds. Basically what it comes down to is the exploit was worse than the fix is. If this is what they have to do for the time being while they find a better way to fix the exploit, then it is what it is. Yes it sucks and it's pretty annoying but it's very necessary. I just hope the devs are at least looking into a better fix. This shouldn't be the permanent solution. There's a line of what you can get away with and what you can't, people need to learn this by now. Purposely circumventing a zone timer and getting more gear, which is basically duping, is so far across the line. Haven't people learned this from the whole BG's gear duping fiasco. Just don't do it.
Perhaps they should have put in more lovin to the security to the timers, or they should let it leave..... but cutting all the code from the game and shorten the timer might not solve our problems.... but its surely the easy way... instead of modifing the code and reimplent oO save some codingtime ^^
As is my guild has had to cut their hours to continue raiding with the flailing Eq2 population (specifically on the west coast). At 10 hours a week total raid time, this change is a slap to us. Unless raid zones are going to be magically changed to be one mob zones, no trash..how will guilds like mine clear the progression named deeper in zone? This is a poorly thought out fix to an exploit. Depending on the new raid content coming with the xpac, it may mean a large portion of your subscriber base going away. There are more casual guilds these days than hardcore....
This is like hearing that the iceberg has compromised the first 5 compartments and you decide to flood the rear 5 compartments to keep the boat on an even keel. All that happens is the boat sinks even faster. My guild can clear PoW in one night so instead of every 3 days we now get every 5 days.Since the only other viable loot is a couple of items in Sleepers Tomb (which we clear in minutes), and some 2 groupable avatars, this game is struggling to provide enough content to warrant paying a subscription. When you take away the casual guilds fun by not giving them the time to complete a zone due to a hard reset don't be surprised when their members decide to stop paying a subscription either. Dumbest decision ever ... whoever is responsible for green lighting this should be fired on the spot.
Avacii@Splitpaw wrote: i agree .. who ever passed this update needs the sack without pay .. and banned to never work for then entire life ... idiot
You guys are being a little extreme with the keelhauling suggestions! I can understand that they didn't put too much thought into it with fan faire in a few days, new expansion unveiling and releasing within a month, not to mention starting up open beta. But. I'm pretty sure this change won't even stop the people who are exploiting lockout timers from doing it. I'm pretty sure the problem was the 30 minute soft timer from zoning in, not the min/max duration lockouts. So if it's still there, 'bot crews' won't be able to clear it '20+' times a day but they'll still be able to do it 8-10+ times a day, if they really wanted to. And if it is, this change is just making a lot of people angry and fixing nothing. But we'll see in 3 hours.
The Q&A at fanfair should be interesting this time around I wonder if they realized this or if they intend to forego the usual Q&A. Either way as buffrat said thanks for essentially stiffling casual guilds in progression and not addressing the issue in the first place...
This seems like yet another overreaction that penalizes the legitimate while (potentially) not fixing the problem it's aimed at. Maybe it will prevent those exploiting lockouts but it seems like it comes at rather large a cost to everyone else. Instead of directly confronting those exploiting they once again throw everyone in the same boat. I hope this is only temporary while a more ideal fix is worked out.... I, for one, can't figure out why they had to go to a hard timer instead of simply eliminating the 30-minute short lock and applying the standard lockout once anything is killed as usual. Just another case of poor communication I suppose; drastic changes that just appear in patch notes like this instead of being prefaced with a brief explanation from a developer contributes to the sense of no communication.
Why don't they just delete the accounts of the people that are abusing the system. That wont stop them from creating a new accout, but they will have to start all over from scratch. I would imagine alot of those are multiple accounts that are bots. My point is don't punish everyone because some are doing wrong
Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote: You are correct, the 30 minute temporary lockout is still there on zoning in. So they didn't even fix the cause of the exploit.
My casual raid Alliance is already struggling to get the right classes in place for each mob to progress and the Devs do this fast and easy fix instead of going after the real problem smooth move SoE. we'd just started getting enough people to have the right classes for each fight in the zones we are doing and you stop any chance of us progressing we only have about 3 or 4 hours 2 nights a week we can raid you give us a 2d 20hr hard lockout? roll it back before you loose anymore subscriptions.
Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote: Speaking as a professional developer myself, I cannot understand not putting too much thought into it. Especially if you know your dev and CS teams will be out of town shortly after the release. If I did that and it caused major side-effects, my manager would FIRE ME on the spot, because if he didn't his boss would. Not that I'd do that, if someone wanted me to my first question would be "It's low-impact enough that it's been there for months and nobody's noticed until now. Is 95 days with the bug vs. 90 really going to make enough difference to offset the risk?".
