Check the raids you put out yourselves and Contested Spawns in KoS

[Rhe]

<div></div>SoE,What are you going to give the people who want to raid?  Seriously here, DoF sent a lot of people packing due to the end game having a number of pulls that no one has been able to do as of yet.  Am I saying dumb it down, no.  I am saying I hope to god you put together a decent reaid force in typical gear and at least attempted these pulls you are putting out and have continuously been able to win them at least 25% of the time using the correct strategy before releasing them onto the general public and expecting everyone to beat your new brainteaser.  Does this mean everyone should get the pull the first time, no.  However there should be at least one strategy if not more than can increase the chances of success and you should've tested it yourselves first before releasing it to the general public.  From what I've seen in a small number of raid content, it is almost as if you tested the encounters with characters set before "The Balancing TM" took place.Basically,  if you are going to put raid pulls in the game, you had better have tested them first hand, with a raid force of 24 people and fought it yourselves.The other thing:Contested SpawnsPut a lot of them in the game.  Everyone who does EQ2 at the end game likes contested spawns.  We like hunting them, we like racing to get the kill.  We like beating the other guilds to the goods.  Instances are ok to a degree, possibly as training runs to get people use to the next tier of mobs, or perhaps to act a bridge and be mid level, ie made for a raid group of 65's for KoS.Suffice to say SoE, you didn't put in enough contested spawns and concentrate on a small number of instances and zones aimed at people who are twinking alts or into casual gameplay, you are going to have to deal with another "Great Exodous".  I firmly believe you can have content for low and mid end and Raid content at the same time and make everyone happy.  You can't outWoW WoW, instead be a dang good game that people want to play that offers something different and you'll grow your own market.  I don't know whose doing your product placement, but fire them.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Rhent on <span class="date_text">01-13-2006</span><span class="time_text">11:49 PM</span></p>

[StaticLex]

<div>Sony doesn't test things.  That would cost money.</div>

[StoneySilen]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>StaticLex wrote:<div>Sony doesn't test things.  That would cost money.</div><hr></blockquote>Sure they do.  But they call them Customers.<p>Message Edited by StoneySilence on <span class="date_text">01-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:31 AM</span></p>

[Kazora]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Rhent wrote:<div></div><div></div><blockquote>What are you going to give the people who want to raid?  Seriously here, DoF sent a lot of people packing due to the end game having a number of pulls that no one has been able to do as of yet. <hr></blockquote></blockquote><p> </p><p>Huh? this is one of hte good things about dof i think most raiders agree on, that theres a lot more tiering of content and some stuff is difficult enuf that it hasnt been killed yet or has only recently been. What "sends people packing" is when "everyone gets the pull" 2 months ago.</p><p>totally agree on the contested thing. some total goober at soe prolly sat down with their everquest2 number crunching abacus (prolly he same person who used to do itemization back in the day, and who currently still does "new spells" ) and decided well eq2 had x # of contesteds for x# of zones, so dof shouildnt have more than x# of contesteds for its zones, tho dof is 45-60 and therefore shouild have more high end content skewed to it. It's possibl;e sony considers silent city its answer to less contesteds, since well technically anything that spawns there is a 'contested'. But i'd much rather see the old situation with a buncha mobs strewn about the world, as it fosters competition and keeps server interest healthy in the end game</p><p>oh oops we shouldnt forget the 2 banner dragons from dof, including siyamak who as of yet has not made an appearance in POF.  And barakah has been missing from many servers as well ( i was confused by a bloorgard post recently saying they found the bug and fixed it; was this addressing the majdul versions or pof?) The current team might want to make it their goal to put these back into the game before the supposed other team releases KOS <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p> </p><p>Message Edited by rozakk on <span class="date_text">01-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:02 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by rozakk on <span class="date_text">01-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">02:04 AM</span></p>

[Xibi]

<div></div><div></div><div>Funny how this thread is coming from someone who quit BEFORE DoF came out.    In fact, you're only lvl 54 or 55 and just unquit a week or 2 ago.  (look up Rhent on steamfont server)  <a target="_blank" href="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/player.vm?characterId=212418208">http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/player.vm?characterId=212418208</a>    What do you know about the raiding game?    Plus you want more contested mobs?  Why?   Because on Steamfont there's only 1 raiding guild.  You want the experience of "racing to the mob" blah blah blah.   You know that's not true because there's absolutely no competition on Steamfont.   There is 1 guild that raids seriously, and 1 guild alone and you're in it.   You just want easier ways to get loot.   It sure is a lot easier to spend 30 min killing a contested and getting loot than to do Ahket Aken for 5 hours to get loot.</div><div> </div><div>I do think you have some good points like about the contested mobs, but come on, you don't have to lie and pretend you know what you're talking about when it comes to the raid game.   And you don't have to lie when you say you want the rush of racing to contested mobs.  LOL  </div><p>Message Edited by Xibitt on <span class="date_text">01-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:45 AM</span></p>

[Vorlak]

<div></div><p>I prefer the instance raids over contested personnally. I hate not being able to kill a mob that spawns becuase of the time zone he poped in, I would rather zone into a zone fight the encounter loot and move on. No pressure, No stress, No problem. It be a different story if the servers where setup by region (ie us-east (sever1), us-centrail (server2), us-west (server3)) but that will never happen so why fight it.</p><p>My pet peeve is the fact that you cannot do certain zones you pay for because one of the challeges of eq2 is the fact you have to wait for a rare item to drop to get a shot at something to advance futher.(ie farm for six plus weeks for a silver scale, to fight a dragon - and that with 5 to 6 groups a day sucks if your raid force is ready you should be able to walk into any zone - either that or make it easy to obtain the access items, not like the loot off the dragons is worth farming anyways.).</p><p>Its quite sad really, the only reason people play this game becuase its there only mmorpg they have played or have to much time invested in there character to leave. Either way sony has people by the balls and they know it.</p><p> </p>

[Ishbu]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Vorlak wrote:<div></div><p>I I would rather zone into a zone fight the encounter loot and move on. No pressure, No stress, No problem.</p><hr></blockquote><p>If thats all you want there are a plethora of games that you and your friends can play and netowork together. </p><p>Personally though I like some of the interaction that results from sharing zones with the competition, rather than everyone getting their own special instance.</p>

[Ballads]

 DoF killed the contested mob ! ther are 3 of them, supposed to be 5 but 1 has never spawned and the other quit a few weeks ago when they "fixed" them. In the process took away all competition on servers . I mean it just not the same to brag to another guild you beat a zone or made it a floor farther then them . I dont care how many ss you have to prove it , it will never compare to rushing to zone to own a contested IN THERE FACE . I know some guilds are willing to put in extreame hours to camp these mobs and be rdy togo before other guilds even know there up, but thats called dedication. Its what seperated the casual from the hard-core .  Not only is there not enough contested in dof but there loot is crap ! T 5 contested have there own loot tables that are for the most part far superior to  T5 instance loot . They had unique effects and names that reresented the lore around the mob (ie venedker- poison etched . ) About the only thing i seen contested drop better then instance mobs is terrors weapons (because they actualy have a proc) . So about the only motivation i have to camp thses mobs is to say we beat the other guild to some loot that no one wants. Even the great slip ! Many guilds claim rights to dominate guild on there server . Usally the ones with the most hard-core players who put alot of time into making their charicters and guilds better . Even tho im in one of those guilds now i was not always . I can tell you from experiancne that there is no sweeter feeling then to catch that uber guild slipping and "steal" the contested from them . Again its that whole IN YOUR FACE the darkside in us all loves. Guilds still compete on a ww lvl. I know many of them are gunning for the djinn master and dofs last ww first . This is fun and brings the game to a differnt lvl but is not the same as competing with someone who you know , see everyday, and is on your server . Examining someone and seeing some peice cold -forged you want from the third floor of ppr is not the same as examining them and seeing the peice the contested droped for them right in front of you.Please sony bring back contested and bring back competition<div></div>

[StaticLex]

<div><hr>I would rather zone into a zone fight the encounter loot and move on. No pressure, No stress, No problem.<hr></div><div> </div><div>Same here, I don't need to be competing against some pasty middle-aged, boney armed basement dwelling nerd who is talking 'dood-speek' smack to me about killing some random set of pixels 30 seconds before my guild got there.</div>

[Rhe]

Most of the fun and reason why raid guilds form are due to competition, especially the ability to take down a mob first.Instances have their place, however who the heck wants guaranteed drops at a set time w/ miminal risk vs rewards?Most of the fun comes down to finding something up that you weren't expecting to be up, getting everyone there as quick as possible to take it down before someone else finds out about it.  Some guilds have got a lot on and can take it out in the morning, other times during normal times you get lucky and get it when regular folks are on.Instances have their place (training guilds for next tier up and gearing) however, making fabled drop in Roost, Poest, Cazel at the rates they do, it kinda helps to cut down on the reason to raid in the first place.  Now some of the changes w/ class specific loot drops, that was a very big step in the right direction from EQ2 from DoF.  But the rest of DoF has sent a lot of people packing.  I've already seen two raid guilds fold on my server as it stands, lets hope KoS makes things lively.Last I read from a poster from my old server was 15 contested spawns for KoS.  Again, thats rumor, I haven't been in beta yet so no clue if thats fact or fiction.<div></div>

[WolfySi]

I don't care if there are contested mobs, as long as I can progress through the game without racing for them. I hate racing. LOTS of folks hate racing. So sure, if SOE wants to put in contested mobs, that's fine. As long as I don't *have* to kill them in order to progress through the game.What I'd like to see is a path for smaller guilds to take that helps them break into raiding better. Right now, my guild is struggling to find meaningful raid content that's just a tad easier than lockjaw. We're not in full legendary yet, but the only way we've found to get tier 6 legendary is to harvest.Some epic x2 encounters that drop legendary instead of fabled would rock. And enough of these mobs for everyone to have their chances (which means don't make them all contested, or the uber guilds will just run around and 1-group all of them, meaning they won't be there for the folks who really need them).

[Rhe]

The problem is that SoE went a different route and made single group instances all over the place that has a chance to drop fabled.  It basically kills a lot of incentive to raid per se.  Why join a raiding guild when you can do instances and get close to the same rewards and have a lot more freedom?  But a lot of the raids require 24 people now, which isn't that hard to get.  Form a raiding alliance with other guilds.  I've done that before in the past, its not exactly a horrible idea.  You just have to be on friendly terms and have a way to dole out loot adequately.But I don't think having 4X's are going to hamper people that much.  Its 24 people, its not that many to get by hook or crook if necessary.I like having to get something under a time limit.  If I had it my way there'd pvp on contested at the same time.  The most fun I ever had online was when I was doing a Keep raid and we were getting wiped by a small guild going after us while we were going for the keep at the same time.  But, thats a different game and would'nt be appropriate on a non-pvp server.  Hopefully when they release full up pvp for the PVP servers they can have some fun.<div></div>

[Dasein]

<div></div><hr>The problem is that SoE went a different route and made single group instances all over the place that has a chance to drop fabled.  It basically kills a lot of incentive to raid per se.  Why join a raiding guild when you can do instances and get close to the same rewards and have a lot more freedom? <hr>No, it doesn't. The fabled items that drop from someplace like Scornfeathers or PP are substantially weaker than the items that drop in the raid zones. I think that SOE did a good job here - the fabled items that do drop allow people to gear up a bit before taking on the raid zones, and give non-raiders some rewards. However, to say they give the same rewards as raid zones simply wrong.

[Rhe]

Hence why I said close to the same reward and not exactly the same reward.  Part of the reason to join a guild is to get better gear and see end game content.  You can get close to the same gear doing instances and catch the end game content for the previous expansion just waiting till you are 10 levels higher and go with casual guilds going after the existing content.I think the instanced single groups dropping fabled does take away a reason to join a raiding guild.  It doesn't take all reasons away but it is another reason not to join.  Its much better for the casual player, which isn't necessarily bad for keeping EQ2's player base higher.<div></div>