LDoN Raiding

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 4:14 am

I am chatting about this over on the Druid boards, but their rules don't really allow me to express my irriation at the fucks at SOE designing this piece of crap.

36 people. Max raid capacity. Absor's responses on teh Cleric and Bard boards when ask - "But hey, you guys made us get these huge guild to fight content ever since Luclin, now you want us to raid everything with only 36 - isn't that likely to cause all sorts of problems with guilds?"

Nope. 36 member raids is the most we are allowing. If you can field 80 people then you can probably take on 3 LDoN raids at a shot. If not, then two with several folks doing group adventures. You'll be able to chat as always, so it's not like you'll lose contact with these people.

If your guild have 72, then you're perfectly set up to hit two raid instances at a time. If you don't have enough for a full 36 twice, run with fewer or take one. I've always been of the belief that a guild is an organization of people that like hanging out together, and if 36 of your guild get together and do a raid, great. If 6 of you get together and do a group adventure, that will be fun too.

Can they really be that fucking stupid? Yeah, players 37 - whatever are going to be fucking thrilled to spend the night "on their own adventure" (read - dicking around in some XP group) while members 1-36 go off and try cool shit. There is no way that will cause any problems.

"Trinity classes" - fucking right Paladin #4 can come along instead of Cleric #7 - yeah right. And everyone's guild when fielding 72 members is in fact balanced so that you really have 2 balanced raids of 36.

Am I insane, or is SOE just fucking stupid? If you all think this does not completely suck - tell me what I am missing. I'd love to change my mind about this expansion.

Etasi · Post by **Etasi** » August 26, 2003, 4:30 am

That's some of the most retarded logic I've ever heard from SoE. Do *any* of them play EQ at the high end, in raid guilds? How can they not realize how much people bitch when they can't raid with their guild? If LDoN raids remain hard capped at 36 people, this expansion will be an absolute fucking nightmare.

Durew · Post by **Durew** » August 26, 2003, 4:45 am

Never thought of it that way Aaeamdar, but I agree with your viewpoint.. Even if you have more than 37 people online, lets say 40-50 people, there's gonna be a bunch left out of that 36-man raid.. people arent going to be happy if they arent chosen of course. not smart on sony's part

Tegellan · Post by **Tegellan** » August 26, 2003, 5:22 am

Very retarded logic.

Hey for 2 expansion we have made guilds bigger and bigger, now let us force people to raid with less people by making a hard cap!!11 Good one!!

I think they will change that when the entire EQ population scream at them repeatedly. They have a good general idea here, just don't cap the raids.

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 26, 2003, 8:32 am

Bloody idiotic.

brenen · Post by **brenen** » August 26, 2003, 9:59 am

I personally like it. Make people use some strategy with thier 36,
instead of zerging stuff tuned for 36 with 80. (Behemoth comes to mind)

Besides the adventures only last 1.5 hours, I think our guilds can find a mature way to rotate people in fairly to see the new content.

OtB is very much looking foward to LDoN as we raid set days, and this will guarentee us something to do. We also only have 45 members, so this may be why we are so in favor of it

Pahreyia · Post by **Pahreyia** » August 26, 2003, 10:06 am

So, on a good day, 36 OtB people go have fun, and 9 are assed out.

Riiiiiight.

(for the idiots who decide to rail me for everything I say: yes, I understand that there will hardly be an instance of all 45 being online and available at one time, however, statistically, this issue will come up.)

brenen · Post by **brenen** » August 26, 2003, 10:10 am

No 36 raid, 6 go into a single group dungeon.. Then 1.5 hours late we switch it up and get others involved.. Its not like a whole raid night its 1.5-2 hours per adventure

Toshira · Post by **Toshira** » August 26, 2003, 10:15 am

If you have 60+ in your guild (which you probably do if you raid Time with any frequency), you create 2 instances of 30ish each. Find something noteworthy to bitch about, please.

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » August 26, 2003, 10:18 am

/shrug

Does not seem like a huge deal to me.

How often are the large numbers actually on at the same time to cause this problem? I guess only time will tell.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » August 26, 2003, 11:12 am

Perhaps this expansion wasn't designed with the idea of providing more content for the big raid guilds.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 26, 2003, 11:17 am

Morgrym wrote:/shrug

Does not seem like a huge deal to me.

How often are the large numbers actually on at the same time to cause this problem? I guess only time will tell.

well we had 72 on last night.

so thats 2 raids for us i guess.

most raid days we have 50-60 on.

there is a real vacuum in the game for small raid content. Solrotower is great for it, but the problem is small guilds can't get a RZ kill. ANyways, basically to succeed at the game, you have to be in a guild that can field a raiding force of 60+. This has been the case for 2 years this november. So obviously guilds have been building themselves in that mold over that time.

But here is another mistake some people make. Some people want every EQ expansion to be all things for all people. People who are not in raiding guilds got jack shit from PoP. People who are in raiding guilds tend to think that the game is designed exclusively for that playstyle. That is an arguable point.

A lot of developer time does go into the high end encounters. Not much developer time goes into tuning the DPS of "a pile of bile". but an important question is what percentage of the player base is in a raiding guild?

so from there they make a business decision based on what they think their customers will respond too. Hey i bought Legacy of Ykesha and have never zoned into it, except to make a froglok twink that has a total played time of 2 mins. so from Sony's standpoint, who cares if the content of that expansion was geared towards my playstyle, i still bought it.

brenen · Post by **brenen** » August 26, 2003, 11:37 am

ANyways, basically to succeed at the game, you have to be in a guild that can field a raiding force of 60+.

Define Succeed? If you measure success only by the elemental planes then sure.. I don't however.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 26, 2003, 11:43 am

i define success as having fun, and achieving whatever goals you set for yourself.

but for the purposes of the above statement, and economy of language, i define success in the game as the ability to overcome obstacles in the game and progress in character/zone advancement.

would i say a guild that has dwindled in membership and hasnt beaten a new obstacle in months is successful? no it is a failure as an organization.

The progression through the game is clear and apparent. Moving through that progression in a manner that meets or exceeds the capability of your guild or group of friends is success.

brenen · Post by **brenen** » August 26, 2003, 11:58 am

Sorry for the highjack, but I feel the need to respond to the additude that if your not Elemental/Time, your an unsuccessful guild.

My guild has 30-45 memeber over the last 1.5 years. We have progressed from Vindi > HoT > WToV > NToV > Sleepers > SSRA > Tier 1 Pop > Tier 2 PoP

Every week we continue to progress through more and more content. Last week for example we completed the Carpin Cycle. Leaving us Bertoxx/Sayrnn/Ryda/MM/Vallon/Tallon from Sol Ro..

75% of our membership have been members for over a year. Now I'm not by ANY means bragging (even though it might sound like it). I'm just saying I don't consider elemental planes to be the only bar of success.

We raid twice a week ONLY and for five hours each. We only have 45 members and I would consider us fairly successful in our own right.

To put it in perspective.. If I was on a Softball team, and we went undefeated, I would consider us successful. Sure were not in the Majors and undefeated, but we would be successful none the less.

Success to me is all relative to:
1. Amount of time a week you can play EQ
2. Gear that you have
3. Levels of the guild (a guild of 30's might feel a run on Xalgoz succesful)

As long as you are retaining members, getting constant upgrades, and moving through content (at a reasonable pace), I would consider you a successful guild.

Atokal · Post by **Atokal** » August 26, 2003, 12:17 pm

Toshira wrote:If you have 60+ in your guild (which you probably do if you raid Time with any frequency), you create 2 instances of 30ish each. Find something noteworthy to bitch about, please.

Obviously you have not been in a leadership position where you have 45 members on and can only take 36 to a raid. Fielding the complaints from the other 9 is a pain in the ass not to mention deciding who gets to go and who is left out. We play this game to be with friends as well as for the challenge and fun. It is a very valid complaint IMHO.

What guild didnt have complaints when the whole flaggin mess started particularly with the trials in PoJ. I need my flag can anyone help with trials please. How come I can never get help with trials. Blah Blah Blah. Multiply that 10 fold for this fuck up on SOE's part. I didnt get to go on the last raid it is my turn..... Oh you are all in LDoN guess I will log then. I am leaving this guild because I never get included in the LDoN raids. Pure stupidity.

Cheers

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » August 26, 2003, 12:18 pm

I think, if anything, this will build mid level guilds into a stronger force. Teaching the basics of dungeon crawling (that is lost in PoP) and other various guild functions. Sure, it has next to nothing to offer those of Uber guild status other than something to do and some fairly decent spells (if Lucy is correct). But, it can be great for Alt nights or something to that effect.

Colal · Post by **Colal** » August 26, 2003, 12:18 pm

In 4 years of everquest, ive only been in one guild. I'm fairly close to the people I play with and i don't want to split a 60 man raid force into 2 30 person raids.

I log on to be with these people and have fun together, not seperatly. Anyone that has faced a target they couldnt kill on their first time, or faced a target that you just won by a hair will know the feeling you get at the end of the fight when you finally succeede. Sharing that feeling with m friends is the reason I play this game.

Taly · Post by **Taly** » August 26, 2003, 12:29 pm

i thought this expansion was for single groups of 6? when was it changed to 36 per entry?

Thats lame. was looking forward to 1 group runs.

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 12:37 pm

I do understand where you are comming from Voronwe. I completely agree that it is possible to design an expansion that does not cater to the large raiding guild and for that expansion to be ok none-the-less. I guess until I read Absor's inane responses, I was just mildly irritated or disapointed that LDoN was not going to offer large raiding guild's much to look forward to, but I figured "well, if nothing else it will make XP groups more fun" and we can all just wait for the next (hopefully soon to be released) expansion for some more raid content.

If Absor had come out and said - "Yeah, we know this offers very little to large raiding guilds and we know that guilds have ballooned up over the last several years largely due to the way we designed content. Understand that not al content we design will be focussed on the top end guilds, but we are always developing new content and those guilds currently in Time will have something new to look forward to in teh near future." Well, then I could have just accepted LDoN as something to pick up for what its worth and not though another bit about it (at least not until I saw the fucked up itemization - but they seemed to have mostly corrected that with PoP, so maybe they are on to something finally).

What I am reading though, is instead "You giant raiding guilds will love this new content. You can just send off parts of your guild to do one thing while the rest does another. You'll still be one big happy chat channel. All is good!"

Akaran_D · Post by **Akaran_D** » August 26, 2003, 12:38 pm

Taly, that wasn't changed.
Most of the conent in LDoN will be regulated to single group encounters, none you worry. We're talking about instanced RAID level encoutners, which are only going to allow 36ppl at max.

Ennia · Post by **Ennia** » August 26, 2003, 12:39 pm

36 max, minimum 4 in a group, but you will be able to take those 4 and get a "mission" for yourself or take 6 groups

so I guess LDoN is for 4-36 players in a single dungeon for up to hour and a half at a time

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » August 26, 2003, 12:46 pm

aaeamdar-

trust me i understand what you saying. if my guild fields 2- 30 man teams to do 2 events in LDoN, it probably won't bother me. You have seperate raid channels, but still /gu to communicate with.

the burden then falls onto guild leadership to make sure that people get mixed around in various groups as time passes so people dont feel like they are always part of the "B team".

managing personalities is fun

Etasi · Post by **Etasi** » August 26, 2003, 1:18 pm

The only reason I play EQ anymore is to raid, so I could really give two shits about an expansion designed for one group encounters. I would imagine that a lot of other people in elemental/time flagged guilds, and even in guilds that aren't quite to that point, feel the same way I do.

If they want to make an expansion only for single groups/small raids, then fine, they should just come out and say it, and be done with it. What I object to is their half assed attempt to please everyone. Guilds with 72 people are going to be happy splitting into two raids? The only reason we have guilds is to talk to each other? Bullshit. My guild is the size it is because that's the size required to beat high end mobs. Yeah, we all like each other for the most part, but we didn't recruit our newer members so we could have tea parties with them, we recruited them so we could raid with them.

Even if large guilds can make LDoN work for them without having half their members quit out of boredom or disgust (and I'm sure guilds will make it work when they have no other option), it's going to kind of suck if you wind up never playing with certain people more than once a month. Sure, you can still talk to them over guild chat, but for me, it's not the same if people are off in some other zone doing some other thing.

If you think that a large guild will be happy running multiple raids, and that no one's going to complain, you're fooling yourself. There will always be what everyone sees as the "good" raid, and the other raids will be seen as gimp raids. People will start to complain, or get jealous, or feel left out/unwanted if they don't get to be in the "good" raid all the time. I don't care how wonderful everyone in your guild is, that will happen unless your guild happens to be peopled only by saints. And there's no way in hell guild leaders/officers are going to keep track of who gets to raid with who, and switch it up constantly so that no one's feelings get hurt. It's just too damn much work.

This doesn't even take into account the class makeup of your guild, or of those people you happen to have online when you go to form two raids. In a lot of cases, I predict that guilds will only have enough people of certain classes to run one 36 person raid, and the rest of the people on, though they may add up to 36, will be fucked.

Even if you write off LDoN as being for smaller guilds and small groups, what exactly are large raid guilds supposed to do? Keep farming Time until people want to stab themselves in the eye at the mere thought of the zone, and there are 20 guilds flagged for it? That sure sounds fun to me.

I don't think I'm being too paranoid about this, either. The issue here is basic management. Anyone who's spent any decent length of time as a guild leader/officer/raid leader for a large, high end raiding guild will know that what I'm saying here is true. If you thought it was bad when people bitched about not being able to raid because they weren't flagged for something, LDoN is going to be far worse.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » August 26, 2003, 2:04 pm

I wish someone from Sony would just say it already than. It seems that people are only having a problem with the semantics. Put a fucking warning label on it warding off high level raiders for all I care.

I would only reiterate what a few others have said, maybe this isn't an expansion designed for big raiding guilds. Hell, the bulk of the material is designed for single group crawls.

If you don't like it, don't buy it. Seriously, that's all it takes. I don't want to hear this, "for the good of the game" crap either in defense of large quantities of high end content. There's a ton of raiding content. There's a lack of crawls. You may just want to raid, I may just want to crawl. One isn't any more important than the other. There isn't going to be 20 guilds in Time for a long time, if ever. Are there even 20 guilds that can do NToV this very moment? How old is that content now? How much upgrading to pc's was needed for those guilds to accomplish it?

Taly · Post by **Taly** » August 26, 2003, 2:41 pm

No worries here now, Thanks Akaran

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 2:51 pm

It is not semantics, Chidoro. It is not merely "the warning lable" I am looking for. It is recognition of the fact that there is going to be a content issue in the high end game for large raiding guilds. If they make it clear that they understand this issue, I can have some confidence that the issue is going to be resolved. LDoN is great and all for those that want that sort of thing and I am happy for everyone getting stuff that they want. I am just very concerned, when I read crap like that from Absor, that he thinks this is all good for large raiding guilds too. Its not. SOE needs to recognize that and have an expansion in the works or an LoY style "extension" - or whatever they called it - providing more top end raid content. Hopefully the new content won't represent yet another expansion requirement in guild size, but it needs to not be a forced contraction either.

Right now, SOE appears to be oblivious to the problems it is about to cause. Everything Etasi laid out, plus more, is exactly what is going to happen if Time is "it" for the top end for another year. That is not going to work unless SOE's goals are to smash up these large guilds their content of the last 3 years has mandated. People are going to be pissed and unhappy - for all the reason Etasi outlined - when they log on to play and are told that they can't join in with the rest of the guild tonight. I have already experienced that on a much smaller scale on some of my guild's first POP flagging kills. Only 72 slots, some filled by guests or sometimes we had teamed up with another guild to get things done - someone logs on and is upset that they are not being included that night. That is managable on a time to time bases - but every fucking night? People will be pissed regularly until guild split off into multiple guilds.

LDoN can be mostly ignored (like LoY and the new interface, you still buy LDoN for the spells and occasionally dicking around in XP groups) by large raiding guilds IF there is more content in the pipe. SOE's proclamation that everything is roses is a pretty good indication that nothing else is in the pipe in the near future. That is what has me worried.

Pilsburry · Post by **Pilsburry** » August 26, 2003, 2:51 pm

If you have 45 people in your guild you probably will never have a full 36 on-line ever, and if you do 10 of them will be anon hiding from you anyway for fear you might start a raid.

What I'm saying is in Celestial Tomb I wanted to raid almost every time we raided. However we always had members who felt coerced to raid, or intentionally skipped it and we had to yell at them because we were already low numbers.

A capped raid size allows some of those players to perhaps do what they wanted to do most anyway.

It also allows mid-size guilds to excel.

If you have 70 people do 2 raids. If you have 39 do one and let some goof off, or tell the lower level ones to exp to catch up or work onpart of thier quest together.

If that's unacceptable get 20 more people as guests and make 2 raids.

I don't see what the big deal is....we complained about having to zerg everything for so long and now when they cap a raid to 36 all of a sudden we get pissed off? They are just trying to meet your request....give them a break.

Elf · Post by **Elf** » August 26, 2003, 2:55 pm

I dont define success as what level of the game you play at, rather how you got to the current level that you are at. If you stuck through thick and thin within your guild to finally accomplish a new goal, you are successful.

I was in the same guild for 4 years till we disbanded. Through our casual play style, we ended up being able to do stuff like Vindi, ToV, Doomshade, that type of stuff.

Im trying to follow the point that Brenen is, your success is based on where your friends are at, how much you play, and if you accomplish your goals.

You can never define success if you measuer yourself againts other people that are in different situations/environments.

Elf · Post by **Elf** » August 26, 2003, 3:02 pm

I also want to comment on the 36 number for raid encounters.

I would love to see an online game in the future (something like EQ) be tuned around a 12 man team. That way your best friends can have the enjoyment of the ENTIRE game.

In order to do this you have to progress in a set order, and encounters are very skill oriented.

But what about the massive amount of other people and content? Everything is triggered through questing or Instant zones.

That would rock, and bring the most enjoyment for my friends and I.

So I think they have the right Idea, just bad timing in the life of EQ.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » August 26, 2003, 3:12 pm

I'm curious Aae, exactly how many additional guilds do you think will be hunting in Time by next year?

Seriously, you ran out of content? What's next? You beat the physical manifestations of the gods, twice. I'm just curoius what you think should be buried in a dungeon that's more grand than that?

If you play 7 hours a day 5-7 days a week, you're going to eventually run out of super high-end content. Sorry

Siji · Post by **Siji** » August 26, 2003, 3:22 pm

Examples:

1 raid of 70 people, 7 drops. 10% return rate.

2 raids of 36 people, 14 drops. 39% return rate.

What's the problem again?

Treeus · Post by **Treeus** » August 26, 2003, 3:35 pm

The reason I quit EQ is because I was REQUIRED to play to advance (and have fun), I couldn't not play because then I'd miss a flag. So I'd sit my character and wait in Tranquility for some high end guild to kill a flag mob then I'd beg for them to let me come along... and if they didn't, tough luck. The day I have to play a game every night for at least a couple of hours to have fun is the day the game is no longer fun.

Maybe they are trying to cater to those players like me, who don't have the time/don't want to play the game constantly to have fun.

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 3:39 pm

FoH and CD are there now. My guess is within 2 months CoE, PD, Soveriegn and Japan_Guild_01 (I forget their name) will be in or near. Vahall was getting close, so Fiends (2/3 of Vahall plus some ex-Farstorm) should be back on pace to where Vahall was pretty soon, so give them 3 months and they are in Time. 5-8 Months, PE, Farstorm, Japan_Guild_02 and/or 03. Other possibles, depending on how they choose to develop once LDoN comes out are SI and OtB.

So a year from now, if no other content comes out, I'll expect 10ish guilds (assuming those at the top now don't quit out of boredom) to be competing over very limitted resources.

More importantly, (no I take that back, not more importantly at all, just more directly effecting me), My guild (PE) progresses at the rate it does in part because we have to compete for spawns. When servers go up today, Fiends and Japan_Guild_01 will kill the top bosses in VT. Farstorm and us will split what is left. We don't get the luxury (earned, btw) of farming a place all by ourselves, because we weren't first or second. So, while the lack of high-end content after Time might not appear to be an issue for a guild that just got into VT 2 months ago, it is. People will not be moving on. CD and FoH will compete in Time. When one gets it, the other will go compete for the Elemental gods, and so forth. The backwards compression has an immediate effect on the ability of my guild to progress at the pace we would like. If all the high-end guilds on the server suddenly left, PE would be in Time in 3 months, possibly sooner. As it is, I will guess it will take us 6-8, maybe longer depending on how bad the backwards compression gets.

This compression keeps going backwards too. With Farstorm, PE, Fiends and Japan_Guild_01 killing everything in VT the day it pops. What happens when we lose on VT? We might look at some PoP flagging thing if our numbers are big, or we might go slumming in Ssra, making us unneccessary competition for the guilds trying to advance in there. And so forth and so forth.

Ultimately, unless LDoN is your be all end all, a lack of high-end raid content effects a lot more people and guilds than just those few at the very top.

Xzion · Post by **Xzion** » August 26, 2003, 3:56 pm

Pilsburry wrote: What I'm saying is in Celestial Tomb I wanted to raid almost every time we raided. However we always had members who felt coerced to raid, or intentionally skipped it and we had to yell at them because we were already low numbers.

.

lol, the name eudas come to mind?

Etasi · Post by **Etasi** » August 26, 2003, 4:01 pm

It's pretty simple. Guilds like mine, CD, are built for one reason, and one reason only: large raids. The game thus far has required us to make our guild the size it is.

I don't have a problem with content geared towards other types of guilds and other types of players. What I do have a problem with is SoE expecting guilds like mine to just switch gears after all this time. If they were releasing LDoN while people were still progressing through another expansion, the way LoY was released during PoP, that would be fine. If they were releasing LDoN with a high end expansion in sight, that would be fine too. But it seems as though they think LDoN is the future of EQ.

The LDoN version of EQ sounds pretty nice, I'm not arguing otherwise. But is it really fair of them to require high end guilds to have 60-70 members, and then change their minds about their vision of EQ all of a sudden and give large guilds a big fuck you? I don't think so. I haven't put all this time into my guild just to watch it fall apart due to stagnation from lack of content, and the rifts that will arise between people when they're forced to split up what was once one force.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 26, 2003, 4:09 pm

This is the smartest thing SOE/Verant has done since opening the first two planes. 36 is pretty much the perfect raid size, although for me I would go a little smaller. Anything larger than that isn't any fun and hardly anyone benefits with a new item. You guys have just lost perspective of that because you're used to spending 8 hours sitting in some gay ass zone picking your ass and killing a bunch of hall trash waiting for the 6 people actually co-ordinating the raid to pull the mob. And then it drops like 2 things and you log off.

Finally SOE is using their brain and isn't balancing an entire expansion and spending 95% of their efforts around the top raiding guilds, who are by the way almost an insignificant proportion of their playerbase. You could argue that the existence of these top guilds and their insane magelo profiles provide the incentive to keep everyone playing in hopes of attaining that goal one day, but catering to these whiny prima-donna's that think they're special because they have the +5 sword of shining faggotry and nobody else does made for a bunch of boring expansions filled with content that was unattainable for only the top 2-5% of the server. Stupid.

Think of all the players like myself that hated the boring zerg fest that EQ turned into by requiring 80 people to kill shit having to conform to SOE's rules for the last 4 years. There's no difference. Now people that want to keep raid sizes small and emphasize tactics and skill over overwhelming DPS are finally getting rewarded. You will conform, or be left behind the curve.

Besides, I'm sure SOE will eventually capitulate to all the bitching and wailing the uberguilds will put forth. Most of them have nothing better to do for the 1 waking hour a day they spent not playing Everquest than to complain about Everquest. You'll probably get your retarded zone that takes 150 hours worth of "questing" just to be able to enter, and it will be filled with items that will make their insignificant little e-penises swell with their false sense of superiority again.

Chidoro · Post by **Chidoro** » August 26, 2003, 4:26 pm

Not only is this not new, it's not even close to being as "compressed" as it used to be. Why? Because you have an entire expansion designed for your playstyle already. Maybe it's time to cater a little to another playstyle. Hell, maybe players from your own guild will prefer that change of pace. Maybe it will prevent churn in your guild because they won't burnout. Maybe having more content that pulls you from this race for mobs will make it less crowded for such race.

You're thinking of the game in one way. Your way. Your race to the top. Your method of distinguishing acheivement. Your way to have fun.

Who says the next expansion is a year away? The game is still growing you know. Even with the old ubers leaving from boredom, the numbers keep rising. It shouldn't be a surprise, afterall, the last series of patches, including this one, have a significant amount of updates to the newbie game.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 26, 2003, 5:06 pm

Voronwë wrote:i define success as having fun, and achieving whatever goals you set for yourself.

Woohoo, I'm a success!

Still unguilded, unflagged, progressing at my pace and doing what I want with no pressure. No goals in particular (besides paragon

), I have a lot of fun. When I get bored, I either don't play or go do something stupid

*Edit - This expansion will probably do a lot to retain the interest of the smaller\family guilds. They seem to get stuck and start shedding members about the time they are ready for ToV.

Jice Virago · Post by **Jice Virago** » August 26, 2003, 5:21 pm

This is reversing a trend that began in Velious and never should have been allowed to continue. Raids never should have climbed above 36 in the first place, but all the zerging that went on caused a vicious cycle of mob power inflation until now top guilds require 12-15 clerics to progress to the final stages of the game. Consider that old school CT, a guild everyone laughed at for its sheer size, would be almost small by current standards. Raid forces of 24-36 should have been the norm around which entire expansions were balanced. People can't honestly say they prefer raiding with 70+ people, that is just ridiculous.

The ridiculous inflation of guild rosters has to stop somewhere for the continued existance of the game. An expansion with strict time and manpower limits is the perfect place to do it. A better way would have been to make velious AEs more brutal and the mobs less powerful in mele and raw hit points, thereby punnishing excessive numbers. Instead we are in an environment where Elemental access has less to do with skill and more to do with being able to hit /autoattack and goign AFK to watch adult swim for an hour while armies of botted clerics fire off a complete heal chain. Leadership has less to do with devising a tactic that works for your people on a given mob, and more about keeping 60 egos in check while you herd the cattle towards a mob that will drop two items and maybe some flags for tag along people you wouldnt have pissed on if their chests were on fire a year ago. Its all out of hand and it needs to stop.

Aaeamdar · Post by **Aaeamdar** » August 26, 2003, 6:42 pm

They are cats, Jice, not cattle. Cattle would be easy.

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » August 26, 2003, 6:59 pm

Holy shit, can this be??

Jice, I agree with you 100%

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » August 26, 2003, 7:00 pm

Holy shit, can this be??

Jice, I agree with you 100%

Morgrym · Post by **Morgrym** » August 26, 2003, 7:01 pm

Oops

Double post..this is much easier than editing.

Sinzar · Post by **Sinzar** » August 26, 2003, 7:16 pm

i also see problems with 36 raid caps. i myself rather like the idea of raiding with 36 people, the 60+ raids generally are pretty dull for me now.

an easy fix for this would be add in all the 1 group content, add in the 36 ppl raids, then add in 2-3 72 capped raids. if its instanced and done right, that can keep every raid guild busy 3+ days a week, while they have the other 4 for existing content + 6-36 ppl LDON events

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 26, 2003, 7:35 pm

Jice Virago wrote:This is reversing a trend that began in Velious and never should have been allowed to continue. Raids never should have climbed above 36 in the first place, but all the zerging that went on caused a vicious cycle of mob power inflation until now top guilds require 12-15 clerics to progress to the final stages of the game. Consider that old school CT, a guild everyone laughed at for its sheer size, would be almost small by current standards. Raid forces of 24-36 should have been the norm around which entire expansions were balanced. People can't honestly say they prefer raiding with 70+ people, that is just ridiculous.

I agree completely. Unfortunately artificially hard capping the amount of people able to enter a zone or participate in a raid is the only way to be able to design an encounter for a smaller amount of people that I can think of.

Its all well and good to design an encounter for 36 people but if you don't control how many people are allowed to participate in said encounter then guilds will take 60 people or 80 people and roll right over it, making the encounter meaningless.

Looking at what even middle of the road PoP guilds are equipping you can tell that mudflation in EQ has gone from simply being out of control to the point where its just absurd. Avatars are literally 3 to 5 times better than they were in Kunark's end game.

I've never understood the point of raiding with 60-80 people though so maybe I'm missing something. The lag and the shitty performance and the drama and the lack of decent loot distribution. I miss the days when I could join up with 3-5 groups of friends and clear a plane or something cool like that. I miss fighting mobs that don't instakill anyone that isn't a fully decked out warrior with 9 clerics chain healing him with 2500 damage quad attacks. That was never fun for me and was one of the primary reasons I never wanted to stick around in EQ.

Something had to be done about the way the game mechanics work in EQ. Yet another expansion pack that raises mob melee damage and upgrades their hitpoints and their AE that does nothing but up the amount of people you need in a raid would just be a stupid idea.

Aabidano · Post by **Aabidano** » August 26, 2003, 8:36 pm

Jice Virago wrote:This is reversing a trend that began in Velious and never should have been allowed to continue.

SoV sucked...

kyoukan wrote:Avatars are literally 3 to 5 times better than they were in Kunark's end game.

That's an understatement, even with bazaar bought gear.

Etasi · Post by **Etasi** » August 26, 2003, 9:29 pm

You can babble on about lag and e-penises all you want, or about how EQ was never "supposed" to be about huge guilds. None of that idealistic bullshit is the point. The point is that, whether you agree with it or not, SoE designed the game around a certain type of guild, and now they're suddenly changing their minds about what the ultimate guild is supposed to look like.

I know someone is going to jump on me for making a bad analogy, but this is the best I can come up with: it's like removing slow from the game, but not changing any of the mobs or encounters. Cutting the raid hard cap in half doesn't affect every single player the way removing slow would, but it's the same basic idea. SoE is leaving a huge gap between their ideals for the game, and the reality of the way the game is played now- based on their own design.

Pretty much everyone who has posted in favor of the 36 person hard cap has said something along the lines of, "it's about time SoE catered to a different type of player than those in uber guilds." It's true, there is a lack of content for smaller guilds/groups of people, and that should be addressed. But is it so hard for them to add in a few raids that require more people, just so that large guilds (which are large by SoE's own design) have something to do? As long as there's plenty of content hard capped at 36, how does having a few larger raids hurt small guilds?

In my mind, that's the ultimate solution: fill the void of small guild content, but leave something for bigger guilds, too. Wouldn't that make everyone happy? Of course it would have been nice if guilds had never gotten as large as they have, but it's too late for that, and no amount of bitching is going to change that.

People complain about not wanting to change their play style in order to succeed in the high end of EQ the way it is now, but it's okay for those of us who like EQ's end game to have what we enjoy most taken away from us? Please explain to me how that isn't hypocritical.

eOmniz · Post by **eOmniz** » August 26, 2003, 9:40 pm

What on earth makes you think there will be anything in LDoN that CD will want to go kill?

The people being pissed about the lack of uber guild content are more than likely going to get jack and shit from LDoN, similar to LoY.

It could be 36 man raids for NToV level loot. You say that SoE is changing their view of what the ultimate guild should be as if LDoN is going to be > Time, which I am fairly confident in saying that it won't.

kyoukan · Post by **kyoukan** » August 26, 2003, 9:50 pm

Etasi wrote:You can babble on about lag and e-penises all you want, or about how EQ was never "supposed" to be about huge guilds. None of that idealistic bullshit is the point. The point is that, whether you agree with it or not, SoE designed the game around a certain type of guild, and now they're suddenly changing their minds about what the ultimate guild is supposed to look like.

You mean just like they always have? Only they did it in a way that you personally prefer?

Conform or quit playing.