Though it hardly matters what I think or don't think in the grand scheme of things, I actually don't mind a contested dungeon crawl...where groups are moving through a zone completing for mobs and such. But, sorry, seeing a person standing in one spot for lengthy period of times...doesn't do it for me.
But, thanks Foretold that mentioning that there is value to trash. I'll try not to be so dismissive of the poor guys in the future
There are no "camps" in EQ2 like there were in EQ1. Contested means who ever pulls the mob first with a clear ability to kill it wins the mob in eq2. This is why spawn timers are so much faster than in EQ1. The design is to give as many people as possible that have the capability (everyone in this game) access to the loot. You are allowed to tag anything you like in this game so long as someone else is not actively engaged on the encounter. Anyone waiting 18m for a drop is demonstrating deficient math skills. Ornate drops off trash so ones effort is much greater rewarded for killing as much trash as possible for mutable material as well as the named mobs.
So are you telling me that I am not allowed to attempt to pull a mob faster than the guy who has 5 different tanks in the zone killing the various perma-camped named every time they pop? Because I understood that 'contested' meant 'if you can pull it first, you get the loot' I mean, when you get up in the morning, log in, see <player1> at a mob, and do a /who zone, and see his 4 alts also in there, also all camped at soloable mob spawns, then go to work, and come home, and log in, and see it all over again, exactly the same, then ask in chat and people say yeah, he has been there all day...
The official rule says: The first who enganges, is the one who "owns" the encounter. Untill you die, the encounter dies or the encounter breaks. The inofficial rule, which used to be adapted by the majority of EQ1 players said: The one who "camps" the mob, owns him. What you make out of that is your own business, not mine. What i do know is that i personally respect it, when someone takes the time to camp a mob non stop- When i see him doing it for over 10 hours, then i would probably change my mind. If one single person camps said zone with 5 (!!) different chars, i surely would think different. But those cases are pretty rare, so i dont judge this to be a normal situation thus not having any impact on this discussion. You dont change whole zones/mechanics because on one or two servers might be a guy farming mobs with more than 3+ chars.
Well I play on 3 servers, and have seen the '1 person camping multiple with different tons' on each. And I'd argue that yes, the whole zone needs to be reworked, mercs need to be suspended in there, difficulty needs to be upped and the bottom floor needs to have all heroic mobs. It should be like ST:Contested - kicking your *** from the zone in.
I think people just need to stop being such babies about this. If a zone is full or overcrowded for your tastes, then you move on to a different zone or you find something else to do. This is nothing new, people, it's called contested for a reason. There's plenty of instances you could be running instead of wasting your time complaining about how things work in open dungeons. Crying about it like the players are doing something wrong by playing the game the only way it can be due to its design isn't going to get you anywhere. I have one character that I occasionally camp names on in Fabled Clefts for key drops that I need to upgrade my level of gear. I have all T2 fabled Obols armor, but the stuff from the Fabled Clefts keys can give better jewelry items than what I have, and that I want. Sometimes I train around to each named on a cycle and sometimes I just stand in one room and go afk between those pops, depending my my mood. So what? I don't need anyone's permission to do this except the game designers, and I'm not breaking any of their rules. I need the gold or platinum keys to get upgrades that are very rare and require what some may consider excessive farming of the zone to obtain, unless you happen to be very, very lucky, which I apparently am not. So this is what happens when SOE nerfs the drop rates on stuff like this because of raiders crying about non-raiders having access to reasonably good gear that they don't think others are worthy of having. The result is mobs get overcamped. If anything there should be more zones like this and with at least slightly better drop rates than what they currently are. And sorry about the wall-o-text here, but I'm currently in the game and the EQ2 browser sucks and it won't let me make paragraphs with the enter key for some reason, probly because it's so buggy.
Can you link to raiders complaining that casuals shouldn't get decent gear? I can assure you that none of this gear is an upgrade to us and are thus not farming it to take away your precious mediocre ring.
While I understand the sentiment, the zone drops better than any zone for normal people (171 about). So most people have the 160-165 from all the other zones because content is old. The min/maxers camping for keys to sell and muting the gear should be a ToS violation for monopolizing a zone. However nothing will be done, so you are correct, normal people should just go away (from the game?).
Bring a solution for the camper situation is more needed Really its not funny when you need to get a named inside the clefts, all nameds are camped by other players/solo players... i dont understand why SOE doesnt bring a change like "only 4 players can get inside the open zones when they are grouped" or other changes...
I heard all these same arguements about people camping Bloodtalon 8 years ago. I solo in there alot.. I zone in, do a /who, if there's more than 4 people I leave and plan to return later. Big deal.
I had to laugh. My husband offered to take me in over the weekend. I am a quest count nerd and after finding out that the keys are quests...well..I hadda have them. Well, the place was full and I did a /who and (including me), there were two other high quest count people in the zone. (hi questers!!!) I assume we were all there for the same reason!
You guys can always camp against the campers. Nothing is stopping you from doing that. Instead, you choose to whine on the forums about how it should be a "ToS violation" which is laughable. It's contested. The very nature of contested content is competition. It's not their fault you refuse to be their competition.
Or.......they could have actually made Clefts a heroic contested zone. This zone is a joke. It's not a heroic contested. It's a solo zone that happens to have solo mobs with heroic tags.
