Long Term Server Health Improvement

Well, Rathe Council was fixed by Hobart to make it beatable by simply patching in the updated zone scripts. I don't believe the non-fleck version was ever beaten by any EQLive guild in-era even when they had 60+ humans, right? FoH and Afterlife were stuck on rathe council for months until it got fixed, correct me if I'm wrong? PoTime / Quarm was never beaten before LoY, right? The new spells and expanded raid window came out during the first PoTime raids.

I was mainly referring to "here" compared to TLP servers. On TLP servers they have the 85/15 rule, walls block LoS, and so on.

But content here is made harder by design compared to EQMac also, examples: no level-based access for PoP zones, no OOR exp, no bugged flags like reverse 15/85 rule in some zones, or skipping certain flags, changed divine aura mechanics, can't skip Ginto with corpse summons, Xegony has adds that spawn, PoTime is hard capped to 60 humans versus 72 on EQMac (this is a huge difficulty bump), no 6+ boxing like you freely could on EQMac and so on.

We do also enjoy significant content bug fixes, and Quarm here is killable, so I would say it's designed to be "harder with bug fixes."

Overall a pretty great balance of challenging and rewarding!

6 boxing and more than 80 mobs in a pull? which custom server was this done on again?

 

Where’s Bragon? Maybe we can get some real facts from actual devs?

 

Not even Coirnav was beaten before LoY, which came out in late February of 2003. Coirnav first died on March 2nd.

The Rathe died on May 7, P1 and P2 were beaten for the first time on May 19 (interesting how much these guilds struggled with the 18-gnome trials; then again, I guess they hadn't been farming Vex Thal for three years), and Quarm died on July 16th.

So I suppose you could argue that nobody ever really saw Time "in era," so to speak! There's a lot of useful stuff (groups cures! the song window! the charm slot!) that those first guilds in Time had that we don't.

On the other hand, some of the mechanics that made the zone so much easier didn't come out until still later: free MGB Celestial Renewal is a big one, and that was late August of 2003, more than a month after Quarm first died. Augments came out in September and the first round of melee enhancements happened in December, at which point Time is a much more forgiving raid.

 

What is up with poair? I dont remember it being total suck fest. I could remember wrong tho.

 

Someone can correct me if I’m wrong... I don’t know how the 85/15 rule would really help you bypass these flags for the goal of experiencing in these zones. The flag rule Allows raids with 85% or greater of people with flag that are inside a given zone to piggy back up to 15% of the raid into the zone without flags.

It wouldn’t help a triobox and his friend enter valor or halls of honor for exp. (as far as I can tell)

 

End game is where players and guilds go to die. There's no point in rushing there.

 

So it’s better to see the players quit before they get there?

 

5 person group could piggy back the 6th person in to any zone
that's how you sold loot rights for elemental group droppable loot to any lvl 46+ person

not that it needs to be said, but this does change things "significantly"

 

Seems like an easy thing to solve it that was a true point of contention. Require a raid size of 20 or larger to use the piggyback system or something ? Some kind of Raid ID required to use the piggyback system?

Also, in the original commenters section this use case seems really avoidable. When you are creating a set of expectations for your journey on this server it’s really easy to not skip forward.
Blood guard could have easily all applied to multiple guilds and gotten carried through to VT but we chose the most challenging route possible. Including killing vox and naggy. Going for innoruuk and killing kunark dragons well before attempting velious and then luclin content.
We could have easily chosen to power level each other to 60. Grind aa and get in on ssra loot immediately but we wanted our journey to be in a specific linear path and we, for a long time, stuck to it. It wasn’t until our ability to kill tov dragons did we realize we should explore the new content.
If a single individual wants to do poj trials to get valor rather than piggyback in, they should do that. But I don’t believe their journey is an example for why not to help others who are joining a raiding guild be able to raid with them from the get go.

The challenges in eq are typically ones you put yourself through intentionally. There is always a faster route. Some want to skip ahead and some don’t. Some new players joined blood guard because they wanted to progress and some applied to already established guilds so they could skip that part and be at end game. Neither is more honorable than the other. They are simply different journeys for players on the server. I cast no judgement on either path. People tend to sort themselves out in the way they want to.

 

I'll disagree with that based on personal experience. Family guild on live died trying to progress and never made it to the end-game shortly after PoP.

 

Philosophically I tend to disagree with the notion that those who don’t put in the -same- work as those proceeding them don’t deserve that same something.

As for recruiting people from already established guilds, I don’t really see how promoting the poaching of other guilds players is a very healthy solution

Blood guard was in a very specific situation of having a well integrated team prior to coming to TAKP. The undertaking of starting a brand new guild and pushing it to end game isn’t one I would recommend without serious consideration. I dont really foresee a new guild adding to the raid rotation any time soon. I would almost bet that a guild will remove themselves from it before a new one adds on.

The requirements of raiding successfully here are extremely demanding and putting together a team of active players to successfully progress is a huge undertaking. If anyone does attempt it, I would lend my knowledge to them and cheer them on. I also don’t see how those new guilds would really benefit from this 15/85 when they all have a raid of no flags. This piggy back system is to reduce the demand for a continuously endless backflag circuit while integrating new players into their team effectively. It really doesn’t skip any effort for new guilds. If it skips anything, it skips granular individuals who are joining a raid guild and keeping them involved while they slowly get their backflags. The goal isn’t to keep these people not flagged forever. It’s to keep them in the guild and on the game while they transition from someone who piggy backs to someone who helps piggy back others.
(If that makes sense)

This post is about the longevity and health of a server that is terminally progressed. It seems like most of the comments and replies on this thread are keeping in mind the current state of the server. Not what the state of the server could be in 6mo, 1 year and 2 years+.
That’s what the OP is talking about.

Good convo so far everyone. I like all the ideas and their explanations.

 

That's an interesting thought.

AK was never a single-box server, of course, but there wasn't nearly this much boxing there before free-to-play, and it did make things harder. All of AK's raiding guilds spun their wheels for years at time for lack of numbers.

On the other hand, I don't get the sense that that was true of bleeding edge raiding guilds in EQ's heyday. The top guilds had people clamoring to pay for server transfers in order to join them! Many advertised minimum attendance requirements, which seems unthinkable today.

I don't love 3-boxing and generally have more fun playing with people who aren't 3-boxing either. I think two boxes would be ideal for me, but I've idly wondered whether I would ever play on a single-box server.

It strikes me that to raid PoTime - at least, to kill Quarm and Rallos Zek and Innoruuk - on an imaginary single-box version of TAKP, you'd really need consistent attendance of 50+ people playing roughly the right mix of classes, which honestly sounds pretty miserable. If your attendance slips a little too low, you can't progress; if it's a little too high, people get turned away from raids and have to sit out.

Velious content is a lot more forgiving in that regard (no hard cap on attendance, much softer minimums), so it's interesting that P99's raid scene is (by all reports) such a wretched experience.

I wonder if any sufficiently popular single-box server is bound to become batphone hell simply because of logistical pressures, or if there are other, similar servers with a much more pleasant high-end raiding scene?

 

I strongly disagree with adding 85/15 to a server with no new content on the horizon.

Elemental and later Time flags should feel like accomplishments for people and for their individual characters. They represent a decent amount of time spent raiding to earn their way into new zones and get new loot. There should be a sizable celebration when you complete an elemental or time flag on a new character because of what it opens up for you.

The goal posts on this server will never move. Elementals and Time will always have the same value as EXP and raiding zones as they did when Temerity first broke into them as they will when the server shuts down.

A personal anecdote that I feel is relevant to 85/15 implementation, I joined Temerity on AK while working a 3rd shift job which meant I was often heading to work after raiding or sleeping through raiding. During my application the guild was going through its typical backflag cycle every 3-4 months and I did my best to make all those raids. Due to something (I forget what exactly!) I missed a Carprin raid. In these days Temerity and Destiny were the only ones on the server doing planar progression and there really wasn’t flag sharing going on that came a bit later. Anywho because I missed Carprin I later missed Bertox, Saryrn, ToSR and all elemental gods. I spent the next 3-4 months raiding on guild wizards, clerics, warriors, and Druids. Anything to help the guild and participate on the raids even if it wasn’t on my own character. Because I did this I was able to experience a few of the server first kills in Phase 4/5 and build up a strong points bank to spend once I did flag my own character. My personal opinion, is if a new guild member generally isn't patient enough to stick around for a few months either helping out on other characters or just simply grouping/AAing outside of raids, attending the few they can, they aren't someone who is going to stick around for the long term anyways. But opinions differ of course!

As Rimidal mentioned above, Temerity does something similar but except for people’s Alts we created 5 characters on guild accounts which we loan out (we call them loaners) to applicants who wish to attend any raids they aren’t flagged for. We’ve used them since Sleepers Tomb and at least one has been present for every first kill on this server from Vulak, AHR, Rallos, Rathe, all the way on through Quarm. They’ve been invaluable as a way of always giving new members an avenue to attend our raids. If I were advising a new raiding guild on this server, having a few raid-worthy characters on guild accounts that can be shared for this version purpose is definitely a top suggestion I would make. Plus when you don’t have any applicants interested they’re easily shareable boxes. AK Temerity had a similar stable of characters mostly from retired mains who donated their characters when they quit and these were the ones I raided on for quite a few months.

As for it being untenable to continually backflag, Temerity raided PoP for 7~ years on AK. Bertox died 21 times, LMM 24 times, Terris 42 times, Rallos 24 times, etc. It is completely doable. Now of course many of these kills were done out of lack of numbers, it wasn't unusual for thes raids to only have 25-30 attendees with very few boxes at all.

AK Temerity definitely enjoyed a different raid environment than TAKP what with no Elemental/Time rotations, but just because you only see Fire or Water for a few weeks out of a 3 months cycle doesn’t mean you NEED to kill them 4 spawns each reset. Sacrificing one spawn and doing some backflag raids is a reasonable decision to make or just stacking your backflag raids during other rotations is also reasonable!

Just from a cursory glance of the replies in this thread it seems like the support is mostly from the Blood Guard faction (feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). This isn’t a criticism just a friendly observation, but I think that as a result of how fast and hard your guild has pushed through content you are stretching yourselves too thin. I get the sense that there is a feeling that occasional backflag raid nights are detracting from more loot-focused raids which are necessary for your guilds progression into late Time. Personally I think in a years time, you won't still be wanting 85/15 after you've more settled into your farming schedule of the elementals and time, and your main raid crew has plugged the gaps in gear you currently have, mixing in the backflags occasionally won't seem as horrible a choice but instead a welcomed change of scenery and more relaxing raid night. Except HoH trials, that is always a horrible choice.

 

How do you implement 85/15 rule without instancing?

 

I dont like the 85 rule for this server, i would however be very in favour of the AK level based zone access which i think would be the most likely outcome.

I would be prob more in favour of an 85 rule if all the guilds wernt being so great about sharing flags, i doubt we would see anything similar on other servers

 

I've mentioned this several times but the record pull in FG required many attempts because it was so risky which was largely from the lag. I usually did around 80-90 mob pulls in there and even with that many it delayed spell casts. I don't know what Haynar did but our client does not lag like it did on AK and it runs much better here.

I thought Temerity beat a non-flecking Council. I wasn't there and it's been so long now I can't remember stuff.

TLP servers are a joke. Players are much stronger there for several reasons including increased combat skill caps. NPC stats are reduced and in particular virtually every PoP NPC had their melee damage and resists reduced.

AK didn't have free access to PoP zones at launch either and they were opened up a year or two in I believe. Nor did AK have the massive group experience bonus in at launch.

AK only had the 85/15 rule in a couple of places and it was buggy.

I'm not sorry exploits are fixed here either. For people who didn't exploit, it's going to feel a lot like AK.

Getting more than 60 in PoTime isn't much of an exploit so I'll grant you that one and it's a big one. In that case it was both intended to add difficulty but also because a 72 limit would just be an bad user experience with a raid window of 60. At least you get Quarm loot and your PoTime drop stats don't suck balls. Drops like the War BP are large power increases.

You guys just forget the stuff I fixed that made the game much more obnoxious. I put in some checklist flags that didn't exist on AK and I'm sure you'd have loved getting a single Coirnav attempt per reset. Then there was the short respawn times in PoEarthB on AK. PoEarthA rares were fixed and the raid event scripts don't require a GM to flip them on. The scripts are probably more reliable here in general but maybe that's my ego talking.

 

I think we are talking about two different things here.

I was responding to Gindainy's point of:

"For new players joining this server, the time investment in order to play collaboratively with others is just so high... for the long term health of the server and player base, it would be beneficial..."

By saying that I believe the PoP zone level unlocks, which I understand to be:

'PoV, PoStorms, CoD = level 55
PoTactics = level 60
BoT and Hoh = level 62'

Would be more beneficial to our long-term server health and the new player experience than the 85/15 rule.

My perspective is that new players will either get lucky/bring friends to do 1-46 in a group setting or it's mostly a solo experience. The fastest, most common route afterwards seems to be 46-60 in a mix of Justice --> Nightmare. That seems to be where most of the grouping happens in that level range too, and where new players meet others, get introduced to guilds etc. 60+ the grouping seems to shift to flagged zones and unlocking them would allow new players (and alts) to group up easier, earn better XP, and have options for farming SPs, GRWs, Ornate patterns and other gear. In ways that the 85/15 rule won't. It seems the level unlocks would impact the entire server whereas the 85/15 rule has a more narrow focus.

I don't know how it worked on AK - did players have to complete Trials, kill MB, Grummus, AD and other raid bosses in order to enter EPs, even though they had access to those zones? Because if not, that would also help (in at least minor ways) reduce the backflagging load for guilds too.

As far as I know, the staff and devs have talked about eventually doing this for the server. I was just offering my perspective where even though I don't have most of those flags and am a prime candidate to benefit from it, I would also be a bit bummed if it happened tomorrow. Just my two cents! I didn't mean any of it as some sort of testimony for what should or shouldn't happen with raiding guilds.

 

Yes you stil required all of the flags for planar progression meaning ep access. You just were able to access the zones based on level to exp mostly

 

Yeah, even if the 85/15 was put in, I wouldn't want it to include the EP's for fear that people could just be gimped in to get their EP drop and then combine a Time key. Level based access to most of the lower zones would accomplish the same thing and allow others to xp in the zones as well.

On live however, you could apply the 85/15 to single groups, it wasn't just raids. So you could gimp in 1 member in a full group. Until the flagged members went LD of course. I still like that idea though for zones where level based access wouldn't be possible and there's no alt access quest like Sol Ro's Tower. Although, there isn't much of a reason to do anything in that zone except raid here.

 

There is a lot of projection going on about how others should feel playing the game. I felt no "rewarding feeling" when EP flagged. I am not still playing because I feel like I "haven't finished everything, because it takes so long". "Having goals and progressing" is not what is fun to me. I do not feel "more invested" in my character because the character has had to jump through more hoops. These are quite bold claims to make, with nary a server vote to even lend credence.

 

This feels like an instant gratification approach.

As many have mentioned, if people are not willing to put in the time and effort for flagging, then this server is probably not the place for them. Not to mention how easy it really is with the never-ending back-flagging and shared flags between guilds, which is something that I personally never experienced on AK. Sure it might slow down, but maybe the new people can spend that time to actually level up and AA while they wait for the flags. I think it's fair to point out that back-flagging will basically never end. To reduce any effort getting towards the end game at this point would be a slap in the face for the players that are there now and also the other players that are currently progressing to there.

 

I would feel no "slap in the face" if there was level based access or 85/15 implemented.

Another thing that has been mentioned multiple times is how easy it is to join in other guilds raids, when not taking into account some players are in a time zone making that very difficult.

 

Getting to max level is literally nothing and can be done within a month.

Also what timezone are you talking about? I am Aussie and I make it work between a split raid schedule of American and European members, so I think I know first hand how hard it can be...but you know sometimes you just need to make it work, or ask other members to help out and box if you need a flag when you can't make a certain raid.

 

Aussie in particular. I have flagged many guild characters through the US time raids, in an attempt to push as many into EP as possible this rotation, but at this point I'm a bit burnt out of it. It also begs the question, if these players are supposed to feel a sense of reward when they get EP flagged, how are they going to get that feeling when another player has basically done all the flagging for them? Food for thought.

 

You can include me in the camp of people against 85/15 for a variety of reasons that have been discussed here. If new players feel like they can't contribute or play the game solely because they aren't able to raid the EP's or PoTime with their guild right away, then perhaps everyone should do a better job of ensuring new players know what else they can be doing to get their character ready for raiding. AA's, gear, quests, tradeskilling... The best thing a newer player can have to help them retain is friends to play with.

 

Sadly not.

I think it was doable! Or at least, it should have been. We asked Hobart to hold off on patching the event for a while because we wanted to beat the pre-nerf version.

Our best bet was to root and summon-kite to cut down on the number of healers needed. We found that really only ogres could reliably summon kite for more than a few minutes because eventually a lucky summon + stun would line up with two or three good rounds and then a non-ogre tank would eat dirt. It took us a year or so, but we did manage to gather, flag, and gear enough ogre tanks for the job.

The banish was irritating - it didn't turn off at low health - but seemed to hit anyone on the hatelist randomly (regardless of whether they were close or not), so while it did suck to have your MT or part of your CH rot or even an ENC off in the cubby randomly banished, it didn't fall disproportionately on the offtank teams and seemed more or less manageable even with three or four of them all banishing at once.

Sadly, on our best couple of attempts, something seemed to go haywire when we hit several CMs (four?) being offtanked at once. CMs - even rooted ones! - would randomly warp on top of people at unpredictable intervals and kill them, which put paid to the summon kiting and effectively made the event impossible without six CH rots worth of healers.

On EQLive, there were two patches in just a couple of days that both nerfed the Rathe, and one guild (Afterlife) did manage to beat the event after the first nerf (which probably removed the shadowstep/banish at low health and definitely made the CMs fleck to some extent) but before the second (which increased the flecking further).