Good intentions I think, but disaster will prevail.

[digitalblasphemy]

<div></div><p><font color="#ffff00"><b>*** Epic Encounters *** </b></font></p><p><font color="#ffff00"><b> </b></font></p><p><b><font color="#ffff00">- Epic raid level 50+ instanced zones now trigger their reuse timer as soon as the player zones in. You can no longer return to one of these raid zones if you leave it for any reason until after the reuse timer has expired. An additional change to add optional revive locations within these zones will be included in the next update.</font></b></p><hr><p>Today's patch had this comment in it.  I'm greatly disturbed by this.  With my own experience in raiding instanced zones, it is very very rare for 24 peeps to zone in without someone going LD, being kicked to the character select screen or just not plain zoning in with the rest of the peeps.  With this new ridiculous linkdead system in place, and groups having to zone back out to pick up members who were dropped while zoning in, it's not uncommon to take 20mins or so to get everyone into the raid instanced zone.  Why was this change implemented in the first place?  What happens when peeps get dropped while zoning and the zone requires 12 to enter, so 2 groups have to zone out to pickup that person once they log back in?  Please explain.  As I read it, the raid becomes a bust.  If you go LD or are shot back to the character select screen you're SOL. </p><p></p><div></div>

[Kenazeer]

<P>This was put in place to eliminate an exploit where a full raid party, sans a couple characters, would zone out of an epic zone while those left would take down the boss. This allowed those who zoned out to zone back in without timer restrictions and kill the boss again. Rinse, Repeat, until your force is too small in size to win.</P> <P>I agree with your post though wholeheartedly. They need to "fix" the game in way that is forgiving of all the bugs that already exist. Linkdeaths on zone in and the "failure to allocate2xxx memory" are just a couple. I dont know why they just don't start the timer after a single mob is killed. Will be a pain to lose two or three of your raid to LD and not be able go back out and pick them up.</P> <P>Message Edited by Kenazeer on <SPAN class=date_text>05-24-2005</SPAN><SPAN class=time_text>05:14 AM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Kenazeer on <span class=date_text>05-24-2005</span> <span class=time_text>05:14 AM</span>

[Dantra]

[expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] I hope they thought of that also. <div></div>

[tek2]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> digitalblasphemy wrote:<BR> <P><FONT color=#ffff00><B>*** Epic Encounters *** </B></FONT></P> <P><FONT color=#ffff00><B></B></FONT> </P> <P><B><FONT color=#ffff00>- Epic raid level 50+ instanced zones now trigger their reuse timer as soon as the player zones in. You can no longer return to one of these raid zones if you leave it for any reason until after the reuse timer has expired. An additional change to add optional revive locations within these zones will be included in the next update.</FONT><BR></B></P> <HR> <BR> <P>Today's patch had this comment in it.  I'm greatly disturbed by this.  With my own experience in raiding instanced zones, it is very very rare for 24 peeps to zone in without someone going LD, being kicked to the character select screen or just not plain zoning in with the rest of the peeps.  With this new ridiculous linkdead system in place, and groups having to zone back out to pick up members who were dropped while zoning in, it's not uncommon to take 20mins or so to get everyone into the raid instanced zone.  Why was this change implemented in the first place?  What happens when peeps get dropped while zoning and the zone requires 12 to enter, so 2 groups have to zone out to pickup that person once they log back in?  Please explain.  As I read it, the raid becomes a bust.  If you go LD or are shot back to the character select screen you're SOL. <BR></P> <P><BR></P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>yeah this is really going to be a disaster, they should have just made it so once you engage an encounter inside the zone you are locked out but again stupidity prevails</DIV><p>Message Edited by tek2k5 on <span class=date_text>05-24-2005</span> <span class=time_text>08:30 AM</span>

[Amise]

<P>It was changed because of an exploit which allowed certain instance bosses to be farmed without being inhibited by the 18 hour lockout.  There's a post describing it around here somewhere.</P> <P>Good intentions and overall it's a good change but ugh, instanced raiding is not going to be fun today.  Hope the full fix goes in real soon.</P>

[SavinDwa]

<P>I'm not sure there is a great answer for this problem.  I agree with you the one SOE just implemented will cause more people problems than any exploits it fixes.</P> <P>Let's forget exploits for a moment, the way we I think it should work is: (times will vary by raid.. so lets not get hung up on the times I use LOL)</P> <P>1) the system records everyone that was in the raid as soon as the first person zones in.</P> <P>2) As soon as the first person zones in a timer starts.  The group has xx hours to kill the Boss mob (time will vary by zone)</P> <P>3) A player in the raid can freely reenter the zone as long as its still active and the timer has not expired and the boss mob has not been killed.  They will always reneter the active zone.  In no case will a group be able to enter a new instance of the zone that has been repopulated.</P> <P>4) If all players on the raid leave the zone and the boss mob is not yet dead the zone will stay up in its current state for another 16 minutes.  If no one in the raid reenters then the zone is deleted and the players cannot enter for 2 days. (or less ..maybe it varies by zone)</P> <P>5) If the Boss mob is killed then no one that was on the raid can enter the zone this again for 2 days (who would want to keep going back to kill the same mob obver and over again?)</P> <P>I think the above might stop the exploits.   But I bet there are other holes LOL</P>

[RoseWhi]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Amise wrote:<BR> <P>It was changed because of an exploit which allowed certain instance bosses to be farmed without being inhibited by the 18 hour lockout.  There's a post describing it around here somewhere.</P> <P>Good intentions and overall it's a good change but ugh, instanced raiding is not going to be fun today.  Hope the full fix goes in real soon.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>This thread looks like the one you mentioned</P> <P><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=50151" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=50151</A></P>

[digitalblasphemy]

<div></div>Lockout time should be based on wheather you have killed something.  Not just at the boss mobs, but the yard trash as well.  That way raids can occur despite the linkdeaths, being booted to character screen issues and so on.  Now after seeing why SOE put this fix into the game, I hope they put some effort into it and actually find a better working solution.  Being locked out of a zone just for zoning in is pathetic.  People going LD and being booted to the char select screen is not a rare thing.  It happens at nearly every single raid.  Please don't make it any worse for the folks who still enjoy playing this game.  The recent linkdead/staying in world for 10mins patch was an utter disaster and is absolutely loathed by all people I know.  An entire raid sits around for 10mins waiting for that person to be able to log back into the world.  Before it took 30-45secs to leave the world if you went LD or typed in /quit.  Now it takes 7-10mins while the person is trying to log back in the whole time and is told he can't as he's got a char in the world already.  Absofreakinglutely pathetic.  Please change the lockout for raid instanced zones to trigger as soon as ANY mob is killed.  This will prevent any exploiters and will also help those people who go linkdead while zoning in and so on.  Why punish the majority of people who were not exploiting the raid instances zone, to stop the few who are. <div></div><p>Message Edited by digitalblasphemy on <span class=date_text>05-24-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:52 AM</span>

[Ethelwo]

What the combat changes, epic encounter changes and now this zoning change all amount to is this: If you have been in a high level raiding guild for the last 3 or 4 months then you were able to farm all the ubber epic mobs to your satisfaction and delight. If you are like most players and have just arived at L50 or are not quite there and only now can participate in these epic raid encounters your going to lose the fight. The content in these zones are going to be next to impossible to kill and the ubber loot that was farmed by the elite for months on end will not be yours. SOE is once again rewarding exploiters at the expense of the average player. The exploiters already have the ubber stuff, the average player is just coming of age to even participate. Who gets screwed in this deal. Certainly not the exploiters.

[MakhailSamma]

<P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ethelwolf wrote:<BR>What the combat changes, epic encounter changes and now this zoning change all amount to is this: If you have been in a high level raiding guild for the last 3 or 4 months then you were able to farm all the ubber epic mobs to your satisfaction and delight. If you are like most players and have just arived at L50 or are not quite there and only now can participate in these epic raid encounters your going to lose the fight. The content in these zones are going to be next to impossible to kill and the ubber loot that was farmed by the elite for months on end will not be yours. SOE is once again rewarding exploiters at the expense of the average player. The exploiters already have the ubber stuff, the average player is just coming of age to even participate. Who gets screwed in this deal. Certainly not the exploiters. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR> </P> <P>My feelings exactly! 5 Big ones for you!</P> <P>I am in a casual gaming guild who is now just getting to the high 40's. I level'd a little bit faster then the rest and had hit mid 40 before the rest of my guild was average level 30.. so I started an alt to play and level up while waiting on the rest of my friends/guild. </P> <P> Now we are getting ready to raid and we are seeing all these changes that will make raiding more difficult (Which I actually like). I play MMORPG's to play with my friends and against the other players around. I am as competetive as the next person and when I see that people are farming epic encounters by using what is obviously an exploit, it makes it so that there is no way my character will ever get a fair shot at having what they have.</P> <P> I am all for a person having better gear then me if they "earn" it the same way that I to can have a chance at earning it. </P> <P> I hope that the players who did this are stripped of the loot they gained in such encounters that they exploited to once again put the rest of the gaming community on the same footing with them.</P> <P> Just my 2cp.</P>

[Silvo]

<DIV>Bad, BAD choice. Anybody who LD's or gets dropped to character select when zoning in is just screwed and can't take par?. How about state the farm exploit will get you banned and punish the exploiters instead of punishing the entire playerbase for the acts of a few?</DIV>

[Rra]

My guild has not had any problems with people going LD during zone ins or getting dropped for probably a month now. I believe they fixed whatever the problem was with that, are other people still having the problem? <div></div>

[shoan]

<DIV>we also have had no problems zoning into a raid losing people and such but the one thing that I stand up and applaud is the revive point in the raidzone.  Juat last night the one lone feign death surrviving monk did not get a rez feather and it ended our night rather quickly.  the rest of this i have no opinion about the timers and what not and goin in and out but I am very happy to hear that there will be rez points in the zone soon yay </DIV>

[MakhailSamma]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Rrael wrote:<BR>My guild has not had any problems with people going LD during zone ins or getting dropped for probably a month now. I believe they fixed whatever the problem was with that, are other people still having the problem?<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR> We,ve never had that problem either. I think it has only happened to us once ever..</P> <P> Maybe Sony just hates some guilds??</P>

[Tillerod]

<P>SavinDwarf presented an exellent idea to solve this issue without hurting people "coming to age." Rather than locking people out the moment they were supposed to zone in, and having LD people being locked out, change the way the timer works and the instance itself works.</P> <P>A big point that he made: Form a list of everyone in the raid that is attached to that instance.</P> <P>Additionally:</P> <P>When the first member of the raid zones in, the list is populated and the instance is opened for those people for 18 hours. The time they would normally be locked out for. These instances are already designed so named encounters to not respawn. For the duration that the instance is open, anyone on the list should be able to zone in and out. Even use the zone for an exp spot after the named encounters are dead, since many trash mobs respawn. Once everyone in the raid has left the zone, a new timer should start, say 30 minutes. If that time expires the instance should close to conserve server space, and everyone that was in the raid should continue to be locked out for the remainder of the 18 hours. Once the 18 hours ends, rinse and repeat. No exploiting because once the named is dead, he's dead. No lockout at times when you may be needed inside, unless you did the encounter recently and rightfully should be locked out. Also provides the opportunity for people to arrive to raids later, or to replace people that have to leave the raid early. Just zone someone out, invite them to the raid so they get on the instance list for raidparty_003, and then zone in, no problems whatsoever.</P> <P> </P> <P>Take a little advice SOE:</P> <P>This idea was formulated by the ideas that I collected within these very forums. Rather than focusing on the exploiters, I focused on the valued customers' needs. My intention was to solve the LD problem and guild members being locked out. As a side effect I created a system that blocked exploitation of named encounters within raid instances.</P><p>Message Edited by Tilleroder on <span class=date_text>05-17-2005</span> <span class=time_text>11:32 AM</span>

[shan]

so basically if a raid force zones and during that process a few go LD  their SOL so is the raid force assuming key classes drop during zone in. is that what SOE trying to tell us?

[Tillerod]

They don't try and explain that to us, but yes, that is exactly what happens.

[MakhailSamma]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Tilleroder wrote:<BR> <P>SavinDwarf presented an exellent idea to solve this issue without hurting people "coming to age." Rather than locking people out the moment they were supposed to zone in, and having LD people being locked out, change the way the timer works and the instance itself works.</P> <P>A big point that he made: Form a list of everyone in the raid that is attached to that instance.</P> <P>Additionally:</P> <P>When the first member of the raid zones in, the list is populated and the instance is opened for those people for 18 hours. The time they would normally be locked out for. These instances are already designed so named encounters to not respawn. For the duration that the instance is open, anyone on the list should be able to zone in and out. Even use the zone for an exp spot after the named encounters are dead, since many trash mobs respawn. Once everyone in the raid has left the zone, a new timer should start, say 30 minutes. If that time expires the instance should close to conserve server space, and everyone that was in the raid should continue to be locked out for the remainder of the 18 hours. Once the 18 hours ends, rinse and repeat. No exploiting because once the named is dead, he's dead. No lockout at times when you may be needed inside, unless you did the encounter recently and rightfully should be locked out. Also provides the opportunity for people to arrive to raids later, or to replace people that have to leave the raid early. Just zone someone out, invite them to the raid so they get on the instance list for raidparty_003, and then zone in, no problems whatsoever.</P> <P> </P> <P>Take a little advice SOE:</P> <P>This idea was formulated by the ideas that I collected within these very forums. Rather than focusing on the exploiters, I focused on the valued customers' needs. My intention was to solve the LD problem and guild members being locked out. As a side effect I created a system that blocked exploitation of named encounters within raid instances.</P> <P>Message Edited by Tilleroder on <SPAN class=date_text>05-17-2005</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>11:32 AM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> Very well thought out post. Hopefully someone notices it.:smileywink:

[Aegori]

<DIV>Sounds like SOE didnt like this change much either, but found it necessary to stop the farming:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><A href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=50561#M50561" target=_blank>http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=50561#M50561</A></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>hopefully their fix will go in place soon to remedy the LD situation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>-Aeg</DIV>

[minionofdeath]

<div></div>I'd like to add something to this discussion.  Our guild went to raid Darathar today.  Upon zoning in, 1 person went LD.  This person was a healer and also was one of the 2-3 peeps on the last step to kill Darathar for their prismatic weapon.  A collective [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] went up from all the members.  Due to the time this person can play, it has taken several weeks to line them up to get their prismatic weapon.  Now due to an LD and this insane lockout change, it could take many more weeks to get this person their weapon.  Fire & Ice and all of Deception will now have to be repeated for this person because once they were able to log back in after going LD on the zone in, they could not join the others in the raid.  While not a problem to redo all the drakotas again, the question has to be asked, why should it be necessary to do it again, when they did nothing wrong in the first place.  This patch to lock people out of a raid instance once they zone in, is beyond idiotic.  I am struggling to believe that this was the best solution to the guilds who were exploiting the raid instanced zones.  A more simple and fair solution would have been to lock peeps out of a zone once they kill anything, whether it be a named, the boss or a trash mob. <div></div><p>Message Edited by minionofdeath on <span class=date_text>05-25-2005</span> <span class=time_text>06:46 PM</span>

[Bladesss]

<DIV>Dont want to give any raid secrets but,</DIV> <DIV>If your in a raid where losing 1-2 key people with trash the raid there are some things you can do to make zoning in more reliable.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Graton]

it's happened to my guild all of the last 4 times we've zoned into an instanced raid zone. at least one person was booted to out of the raid and back to character select. this is all in the last 3 weeks. <div></div>

[jwdanie]

<P>IF any of you bothered to read the patch notes past the one line that made you mad you would have seen that anyone that goes ld while zoning ends up in the zone they were heading into.  So they will be standing right next to you in the raid instance when they log back in and a simple invite will cure everything.  </P> <P>Take the time to read instead of complain please.</P>

[digitalblasphemy]

<span><blockquote><hr>jwdaniels wrote: <p>IF any of you bothered to read the patch notes past the one line that made you mad you would have seen that anyone that goes ld while zoning ends up in the zone they were heading into.  So they will be standing right next to you in the raid instance when they log back in and a simple invite will cure everything.  </p> <p>Take the time to read instead of complain please.</p><hr></blockquote>That is correct </span><span>jwdaniels.  But your supposed self intellect is in fact ignorance.  The line about logging back into a raid instanced zone if you went LD whilst zoning in, went live on LU9b on the 26th.  That was 2-3 days after the first patch went in that locked people out of instanced zones once they zoned into it.   This topic was started at that time and before LU9b went live.  Check your facts.  This topic has already achieved it's goal.  SOE's original lockout solution was a perpostrous idea.  Common sense has prevailed and on paper it should work better now.  Time will of course tell if that is the case.  Maybe next time you need to "bother" yourself and read peoples posts, and more importantly, the time they were posted before you criticise others. </span><div></div>

[jwdanie]

<DIV>Seeing as how the thread was at the top, for newest post, and the most recent post, which was still complaining, was from this morning, I think that there are people that didn't read the @#%!# patch notes.</DIV>

[darkshm]

<span><blockquote><hr>Ethelwolf wrote:What the combat changes, epic encounter changes and now this zoning change all amount to is this: If you have been in a high level raiding guild for the last 3 or 4 months then you were able to farm all the ubber epic mobs to your satisfaction and delight. If you are like most players and have just arived at L50 or are not quite there and only now can participate in these epic raid encounters your going to lose the fight. The content in these zones are going to be next to impossible to kill and the ubber loot that was farmed by the elite for months on end will not be yours. SOE is once again rewarding exploiters at the expense of the average player. The exploiters already have the ubber stuff, the average player is just coming of age to even participate. Who gets screwed in this deal. Certainly not the exploiters. <div></div><hr></blockquote> So SOE should what... leave all exploits in the game to allow new players to exploit them long enough to catch up to the older exploiters?  That's insanity, pure insanity.  What you're suggesting is statis, games must evolve or die. This solution does definitely suck a decent amount of donkey privates sure, but it's their first stab at it.  I think (I hope) SOE will probably adopt some changes along the "once you've killed your first mob" lines, give 'em time.  If you really want to get angry at someone, blame the lazy F***ing exploiters who ruin it for everyone else.</span><div></div>