Simultaneous respawn of competitive encounters: A suggestion to improve raiding in EoF

[Ixnay]

<DIV>Players in the top 3 to 5 raid guilds on each server are very familar with what happens when a competitive raid encounter spawns.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Within minutes, the population of a zone like Tenebrous (Hurricanus), Barren Sky (Princes) and Bonemire (Mutant Outcast) can swell from under 20 players total to over 200.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>SoE has stated that these zones and servers are capable of handling these loads, but I think most who raid will disagree.  The lag and delay at contested encounters is game breaking, and makes them almost unplayable for anyone without a leading edge computer system, video card, and connection.  Even if the zones and servers are theoretically capable of handling these loads, which might be the case if all these players were spread equally throughout the zone, it simply isn't true that gameplay is enjoyable when 200+ players are all concentrated within the same small area.  Often, the hardest monster at these encounters is not the one that drops loot; but is the lag monster.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I was thinking, would it be possible to set the timers on competitive encounters in EoF so that at least one third of all contested mobs pop at exactly the same time?  For instance, if there will be 18 competitive encounters in EoF (I don't know the exact number), could timers be set so that 6 of these encounters will spawn at exactly the same time?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This might kill two birds with one stone:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>First, no one zone would become immediately overloaded when a named popped, since different guilds would flock to different zones for a chance at different named.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Second, I love competitive encounters and wouldn't be interested in playing EQ2 if all epic x4 encounters were instanced.  The thrill of victory and agony of defeat associated with racing to, engaging, and either killing or wiping to a competitive encounter is the best part of this game, as far as I'm concerned.  I understand that others may feel differently, however, and would prefer everything be instanced, since they feel like they might not have the same shot of killing a mob as a guild with a more successful history of winning contested encounters.  If multiple contested encounters spawned at exactly the same time, the leading guilds would presumably go to the harder ones first (since those theoretically drop the best loot), and the up and coming guilds would then get a fair shot at the lesser encounters, and at least get an opportunity to try them out and learn them and advance their raiding skills.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I really think this would improve gameplay and satisfaction with EQ2 for all guilds, and would be interested to know what others think about this idea.</DIV>

[Ratty31]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  For instance, if there will be 18 competitive encounters in EoF </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>If there's 18 I might actually buy it.<BR>

[CrazedMut]

<div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Ixnay wrote:<div>Players in the top 3 to 5 raid guilds on each server are very familar with what happens when a competitive raid encounter spawns.  </div> <div> </div> <div>Within minutes, the population of a zone like Tenebrous (Hurricanus), Barren Sky (Princes) and Bonemire (Mutant Outcast) can swell from under 20 players total to over 200.</div> <div> </div> <div>SoE has stated that these zones and servers are capable of handling these loads, but I think most who raid will disagree.  The lag and delay at contested encounters is game breaking, and makes them almost unplayable for anyone without a leading edge computer system, video card, and connection.  Even if the zones and servers are theoretically capable of handling these loads, which might be the case if all these players were spread equally throughout the zone, it simply isn't true that gameplay is enjoyable when 200+ players are all concentrated within the same small area.  Often, the hardest monster at these encounters is not the one that drops loot; but is the lag monster.</div> <div> </div> <div>I was thinking, would it be possible to set the timers on competitive encounters in EoF so that at least one third of all contested mobs pop at exactly the same time?  For instance, if there will be 18 competitive encounters in EoF (I don't know the exact number), could timers be set so that 6 of these encounters will spawn at exactly the same time?</div> <div> </div> <div>This might kill two birds with one stone:</div> <div> </div> <div>First, no one zone would become immediately overloaded when a named popped, since different guilds would flock to different zones for a chance at different named.</div> <div> </div> <div>Second, I love competitive encounters and wouldn't be interested in playing EQ2 if all epic x4 encounters were instanced.  The thrill of victory and agony of defeat associated with racing to, engaging, and either killing or wiping to a competitive encounter is the best part of this game, as far as I'm concerned.  I understand that others may feel differently, however, and would prefer everything be instanced, since they feel like they might not have the same shot of killing a mob as a guild with a more successful history of winning contested encounters.  If multiple contested encounters spawned at exactly the same time, the leading guilds would presumably go to the harder ones first (since those theoretically drop the best loot), and the up and coming guilds would then get a fair shot at the lesser encounters, and at least get an opportunity to try them out and learn them and advance their raiding skills.</div> <div> </div> <div>I really think this would improve gameplay and satisfaction with EQ2 for all guilds, and would be interested to know what others think about this idea.</div><hr></blockquote>An intriguing idea. The only problem I see is if they all happen to pop at extreme ends of time-zones. If they <b>6</b> pop before EST raiding guilds, the early EST raiding guilds get first pick to wipe through all contested for a week. If <b>6 </b>pop late PST time, PST guilds have the best chance of moving through and decimating all the contesteds that pop when other guilds have hit the sack. Even worse, if there is a Guild on a particular server that plays a foreign time (Korean Guild on US server for example), and  <b>6</b> contesteds happened to pop that time when absolutely no chance of 95% of American raiding guilds will be on, they will have the mobs all to themselves. I understand uber hardcore guilds can get 24 raiders on within the snap of a finger, but a lot of guilds that take down contested may find themselves getting owned if they are unlucky. As it stands, having several mobs pop different times shakes things up a bit, and means every guild has to continually be on there toes at different times. I guess this argument has flaws, but I like the system how it currently is. Perhaps some compromise (like 2 popping at a time) would be better, I don't like the idea of several mobs popping I guess. Overall though, I do agree with what your saying. Having 56 guilds all swarming MO is not fun for most people and their computers.A very interesting idea...EDIT: Apologies, re-read your post and spotted you said six and not all contesteds. Same arguement still applies from my POV tho.</div><p>Message Edited by CrazedMutha on <span class=date_text>09-09-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:14 PM</span>

[Exill]

I think the contested mob timers should remain similar to how they are or maybe even make them a bit more random.Like someone said above, most servers have more american guilds raiding then any other region guild. If a server had lets say 3 american guilds raiding during their "primetime" and 1 asian or aussie guild raiding during their "primetime" that would equate to aprox 2 contested per american guilds and 6 contested for the underdog asian or aussie guild (assuming all said guilds were competant enough to take down the contested mob).I do not think that SoE should cater to the majority or the minority, which is why in my oppinion every contested mob should be on their own individual random respawn timer.<div></div>

[KrayzieK]

<DIV>I agree that they should all have individual timers.  As far as the uber guild going straight to the hardest mob, I highly doubt that.  Uber guilds would kill the easier contested first since those are actually contested and kill the hard mobs last because the other guilds wouldn't stand a chance.  Atleast that's how it's been on my server when 2 contested popped at same time.  MO and Hurri up at same time, of course we go to Hurricanus because it's much easier than MO.  I think the timer should be more random as well ... I've heard some guilds can pinpoint exactly when contested spawn within half an hour, which is b/s.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>T5 was a perfect example of how contested mobs should be in this game.  I'd like to see atleast a couple contested in each high-end zone ... and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</DIV>

[Snarks]

I like your enthusiasm lfg, but this idea is horrible. The simple fact is that there will more than likely be 1 guild that dominates on each server that will just swoop in and still clear these. Or they could all pop at 3am and said guild would wake up and kill them. very flavourless! there should be an element of surprise for each mob. NOt having to worry about contested for 7-9+ days is boring<div></div>

[Quicksilver74]

<DIV>The core of the idea is still quite good... find a way to reduce the lag at contested encounters.    that is the ultimate goal.  </DIV> <DIV>Kalidon has a great idea also, with a "Super Contested" that would spawn once a month.   </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>  The worst part about this though, is that all contested mobs will have gear with flowing though 2, and it will still be crap compared to legendary, so might as well do an instance.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>   That being said... we will certainly see more T7 contested.  Between the KoS and Fallen Dynasty raids, we will also have more in EoF, and there will certainly be a much higher chance of multiple contesteds spawning at the same time.  Why not instance overland zones again?  Instance Barren sky and Tenebrous Tangle and Bonemire?   When you do it... make it so that if a contested mob is killed in ANY instance.... all others instantly despawn.  </DIV>

[Dasein]

<hr size="2" width="100%">When you do it... make it so that if a contested mob is killed in ANY instance.... all others instantly despawn. <hr size="2" width="100%">I don't think instances can talk ot each other like that. <div></div>

[Exill]

<div><blockquote><hr>KrayzieKal wrote:<div>and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</div><hr></blockquote>Such a good idea.</div>

[Snarks]

<div><blockquote><hr>Exill wrote:<div><blockquote><hr>KrayzieKal wrote:<div>and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</div><hr></blockquote>Such a good idea.</div><hr></blockquote>I think its a nifty idea but I think given the current contested trend its counter productive. Once again one guild would see hits mob once a month and kill it everytime. Atleast on more than half the servers............ In guilds with more than 1 competant raid guild you are looking at the worst lag to date if the mob has any difficulty whatsoever.What I would rather see is more random and new contested that appear without any warning. Of course the incrdible dev/community connections some people have would surely spoil every possibility of suprise, I would rather see more "live update" contested like the dragons at the end of DoF.</div>

[jago quicksilver]

    if they have as many in EoF as the rumors say, then there is without a doubt that 2-3 or even 4 contested will be up at the same time.<div></div>

[Lanfeare]

"Even worse, if there is a Guild on a particular server that plays a foreign time (Korean Guild on US server for example), and 6 contesteds happened to pop that time when absolutely no chance of 95% of American raiding guilds will be on, they will have the mobs all to themselves."Statements like that annoy me more then anything else, what right do American guilds have over contested mobs then Korean, Asian, Australian or European guilds or in fact any other timezone guilds?

[AlexT]

I think we can all agree first of all they need to put in more contested <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[MexStrat]

Plain and simple,  If there is more contested content there is much more of a chance that multiple encounters would spawn at the same time.   A post of mine on another thread suggest 7-10 end-tier contested encounters.   but I certainly agree the more contested content the better.One thing i can honestly say, the one thing that kept me playing EQ2 was joining a raiding a guild.   Once you have reached the level cap there is a limited amount of things to challenge you as a player.   You can join a raiding, but so many servers have 1 or 2 guilds that have a lockdown on all the contested content(arguably the biggest challenge in the game) so breaking into that end of the game content is difficult and can be daunting, to the point of quitting the game.   More contested content would increase the number of chances another guild can grab one of these End-Game encounters, and really have something to play for.   The more guilds that can vie for this endgame content the more players actively participating in the game.   More people participating means less people quitting.   I hear alot of talk about raid content being for a select few and therefore not worthy of alot of design space, time and energy.  With less and less space, time and energy being utitlize for raid content, the less and less people that raid, and the less and less people that see the challenge of end game content.  I contend,  If you spend more time, space and energy on Raid content that would give more opportunity for more people to experience it.  Therefore, keeping more people playing the game.So i agree with more contested encounters at the end-tier.   I would love to see 18, but I would be happy with 10.  I would love to see End-tier content scattered throughout norrath(all availble zones), but would be happy with a select few zones(old world tier 5 and tier 6 zones).    <div></div>

[KrayzieK]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> snarkteeth wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Exill wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> KrayzieKal wrote:<BR><BR> <DIV>and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Such a good idea.<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>I think its a nifty idea but I think given the current contested trend its counter productive. Once again one guild would see hits mob once a month and kill it everytime. Atleast on more than half the servers............ In guilds with more than 1 competant raid guild you are looking at the worst lag to date if the mob has any difficulty whatsoever.<BR><BR>What I would rather see is more random and new contested that appear without any warning. Of course the incrdible dev/community connections some people have would surely spoil every possibility of suprise, I would rather see more "live update" contested like the dragons at the end of DoF.<BR><BR><BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>So because a guild is uber and likely to kill a certain contested every time they shouldn't implement it?  They may as well not make any content in this game then because there will always be a certain guild likely to complete stuff before all others, including instances.  I don't think the point of this thread should be "give everybody an equal chance to get contested" because that isn't an actual problem.  Everybody does have the same chance right now and if a single guild monopolizes all contested on a server that just means they know [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] they are doing and are super hardcore.  I can't believe you would propose more "live update" contested like the dragons at the end of DoF ... I hope you're being sarcastic.</P> <P>The dragons at the "end" of DoF was a huge slap in the face.  It was promised content throughout the entire expansion and we were able to see it for a few weeks.  Now those dragons are trivial.  There is no challenge in them, the loot is worthless, so all the extra time dev's put into tweaking the encounter to finally have it ready at the END of the expansion was wasted.  They need to have this stuff ready at launch and stop wasting everybodies time including their own.</P>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> KrayzieKal wrote:<BR> <DIV>I agree that they should all have individual timers.  As far as the uber guild going straight to the hardest mob, I highly doubt that.  Uber guilds would kill the easier contested first since those are actually contested and kill the hard mobs last because the other guilds wouldn't stand a chance.  Atleast that's how it's been on my server when 2 contested popped at same time.  MO and Hurri up at same time, of course we go to Hurricanus because it's much easier than MO.  I think the timer should be more random as well ... I've heard some guilds can pinpoint exactly when contested spawn within half an hour, which is b/s.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>T5 was a perfect example of how contested mobs should be in this game.  I'd like to see atleast a couple contested in each high-end zone ... and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I like your idea for an uber rare "super contested" mob that drops 5 to 6 fabled and has a one month respawn, that would be as special and memorable as a super rare event of childhood legend, such as finding four prizes instead of one in a box of Captain Crunch cereal, or getting a Happy Meal with three toys.  So I'd definitely love to see one extremely rare "Super Loot" mob per expansion in EQ2.</P> <P>I see your point about guilds clearing encounters from easiest to hardest to get all the loot, instead of starting with the hard encounters first.  But I disagree based on two examples based on economic game theory:  </P> <P>First, to a guild with almost all contested encounters locked down on a server (admittedly mine included, we've lost Hurricanus a few times when it popped while we had nobody on line, but that's it other than the Bonemire obelisks, which we don't try for), there is value associated with never giving another guild a real chance to practice hard encounters, such as Princes and MO.  That's because, before we were able to beat these encounters for the first time, we had to practice them extensively, and sometimes wipe 20+ times before developing the strat and team coordination needed to win.  So, if other guilds never get the opportunity to practice these encounters in a reasonably lag free environment, they will still never get the hours of uninterrupted practice needed to beat them.  If there was a real difference in loot quality between the easiest encounters and the hardest encounters, I believe the top guild on each server would go straight to at least the medium-difficulty encounter rather than the easiest encounter after the first few weeks of the expansion.  And that's because if the top guild started with the easiest encounter, other guilds would use that opportunity to learn the harder encounters.  So you'd be cutting your own throat going from encounter 6 (easiest) to encounter 1 (hardest), since that would benefit your competition by increasing their chance at getting the best loot (again, this assumes our devs learned from the game-breaking mistakes of itemization made in DoF and KoS, and that EoF loot will be based on risk vs. reward and simple reasoning involving progression).</P> <P>Second, as we see expansion, while one guild per server is usually able to kill everything first, and often by a wide margin over other guilds on that server, the other guilds usually get geared up, practice, develop their skills, and can eventually beat most encounters also before the end of the expansion.  So, it would also be a huge mistake for the top guild to start with the easiest encounter first, because then other guilds would just start at the next to easiest, or at medium difficulty, and would then be able to beat these encounters not too long after the top guild.  </P> <P>Again, it would be a huge mistake for the top guild to start at the easiest encounter, because other guilds would get higher value loot if they did that.  I think in this case, after the first few weeks of spawns, the top guild would almost always start at the medium encounters at least, leaving the easier encounters for the other guilds.  And this would give all guilds some shot at getting contested loot every week, which I think is the fairest possible thing that could happen in EQ2.  If respawns in EoF are on individual timers as they are now, rather than on multi-encounter respawn timers as I'm suggesting, I believe my guild and others like us on other servers will continue to do what we do best, which is to dominate > 90 percent of all contested epic encounters on the server, for the entire expansion.  And you can't expect us to do otherwise, these are contested encounters, and we follow the rules and play to win.  See, we aren't evil greedy people, but we will work to maximize our share of rewards from this game, and it would be ridiculous to expect us to not act in our own best interests.</P> <P>But introducing economic game theory, and requiring guilds to choose which encounter to hit first based on decisions involving opportunity cost, would introduce a whole new level of competitive game play, and that would be much more fun even than the current system, where it seems like we are guaranteed to get almost everything.  And when we get everything, other players in other guilds often think this is unfair, and then post saying that there should be no competitive raid encounters, that everything should be instanced.  So I see putting blocks of competitive spawns on the same timer as introducing a whole new level of competitive "sport" to contested encounters, and as a win-win situation for all guilds.</P> <P>For those who say, this idea is horrible, what happens if six competitive encounters spawn at 3 A.M. Eastern time, the Asian/Euro and Aussie guilds will get them all.  My response is, so what.  They deserve the same benefits and chances as the American guilds, this would affect everyone equally.  </P> <P>At the beginning of T5, all contested encounters were on a fixed, exact timer, so if the respawn timer for an encounter was six days, it would respawn exactly six days to the minute from when it was last killed.  That was unfair and allowed some guilds in some time zones to totally lock down certain spawns.  But at the first Fanfaire/Summit, the idea was suggested to change this by introducing a +/- random timer into every competitive spawn.  And that idea was implemented, and has been applied to all competitive spawns since.  So while one guild in one time zone might get a disproportionately large number of kills from a block of encounters that all respawned at the same time one week, this would be far from an ongoing certainty for them, and the odds would be that the timer would repop in a different time zone the following week.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[KrayzieK]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> KrayzieKal wrote:<BR> <DIV>I agree that they should all have individual timers.  As far as the uber guild going straight to the hardest mob, I highly doubt that.  Uber guilds would kill the easier contested first since those are actually contested and kill the hard mobs last because the other guilds wouldn't stand a chance.  Atleast that's how it's been on my server when 2 contested popped at same time.  MO and Hurri up at same time, of course we go to Hurricanus because it's much easier than MO.  I think the timer should be more random as well ... I've heard some guilds can pinpoint exactly when contested spawn within half an hour, which is b/s.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>T5 was a perfect example of how contested mobs should be in this game.  I'd like to see atleast a couple contested in each high-end zone ... and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I like your idea for an uber rare "super contested" mob that drops 5 to 6 fabled and has a one month respawn, that would be as special and memorable as a super rare event of childhood legend, such as finding four prizes instead of one in a box of Captain Crunch cereal, or getting a Happy Meal with three toys.  So I'd definitely love to see one extremely rare "Super Loot" mob per expansion in EQ2.</P> <P>I see your point about guilds clearing encounters from easiest to hardest to get all the loot, instead of starting with the hard encounters first.  But I disagree based on two examples based on economic game theory:  </P> <P>First, to a guild with almost all contested encounters locked down on a server (admittedly mine included, we've lost Hurricanus a few times when it popped while we had nobody on line, but that's it other than the Bonemire obelisks, which we don't try for), there is value associated with never giving another guild a real chance to practice hard encounters, such as Princes and MO.  That's because, before we were able to beat these encounters for the first time, we had to practice them extensively, and sometimes wipe 20+ times before developing the strat and team coordination needed to win.  So, if other guilds never get the opportunity to practice these encounters in a reasonably lag free environment, they will still never get the hours of uninterrupted practice needed to beat them.  If there was a real difference in loot quality between the easiest encounters and the hardest encounters, I believe the top guild on each server would go straight to at least the medium-difficulty encounter rather than the easiest encounter after the first few weeks of the expansion.  And that's because if the top guild started with the easiest encounter, other guilds would use that opportunity to learn the harder encounters.  So you'd be cutting your own throat going from encounter 6 (easiest) to encounter 1 (hardest), since that would benefit your competition by increasing their chance at getting the best loot (again, this assumes our devs learned from the game-breaking mistakes of itemization made in DoF and KoS, and that EoF loot will be based on risk vs. reward and simple reasoning involving progression).</P> <P>Second, as we see expansion, while one guild per server is usually able to kill everything first, and often by a wide margin over other guilds on that server, the other guilds usually get geared up, practice, develop their skills, and can eventually beat most encounters also before the end of the expansion.  So, it would also be a huge mistake for the top guild to start with the easiest encounter first, because then other guilds would just start at the next to easiest, or at medium difficulty, and would then be able to beat these encounters not too long after the top guild.  </P> <P>Again, it would be a huge mistake for the top guild to start at the easiest encounter, because other guilds would get higher value loot if they did that.  I think in this case, after the first few weeks of spawns, the top guild would almost always start at the medium encounters at least, leaving the easier encounters for the other guilds.  And this would give all guilds some shot at getting contested loot every week, which I think is the fairest possible thing that could happen in EQ2.  If respawns in EoF are on individual timers as they are now, rather than on multi-encounter respawn timers as I'm suggesting, I believe my guild and others like us on other servers will continue to do what we do best, which is to dominate > 90 percent of all contested epic encounters on the server, for the entire expansion.  And you can't expect us to do otherwise, these are contested encounters, and we follow the rules and play to win.  See, we aren't evil greedy people, but we will work to maximize our share of rewards from this game, and it would be ridiculous to expect us to not act in our own best interests.</P> <P>But introducing economic game theory, and requiring guilds to choose which encounter to hit first based on decisions involving opportunity cost, would introduce a whole new level of competitive game play, and that would be much more fun even than the current system, where it seems like we are guaranteed to get almost everything.  And when we get everything, other players in other guilds often think this is unfair, and then post saying that there should be no competitive raid encounters, that everything should be instanced.  So I see putting blocks of competitive spawns on the same timer as introducing a whole new level of competitive "sport" to contested encounters, and as a win-win situation for all guilds.</P> <P>For those who say, this idea is horrible, what happens if six competitive encounters spawn at 3 A.M. Eastern time, the Asian/Euro and Aussie guilds will get them all.  My response is, so what.  They deserve the same benefits and chances as the American guilds, this would affect everyone equally.  </P> <P>At the beginning of T5, all contested encounters were on a fixed, exact timer, so if the respawn timer for an encounter was six days, it would respawn exactly six days to the minute from when it was last killed.  That was unfair and allowed some guilds in some time zones to totally lock down certain spawns.  But at the first Fanfaire/Summit, the idea was suggested to change this by introducing a +/- random timer into every competitive spawn.  And that idea was implemented, and has been applied to all competitive spawns since.  So while one guild in one time zone might get a disproportionately large number of kills from a block of encounters that all respawned at the same time one week, this would be far from an ongoing certainty for them, and the odds would be that the timer would repop in a different time zone the following week.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I see your point about possibly wanting to go to the harder mobs first, but I disagree.  This topic in general is based on an event that has only happened once or twice on my server ( multiple contested being up at same time, it just dont happen often because they always die within an hour of spawning&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so it's really hard to judge.  However, in both cases where there were multiple mobs up and we decided to go to the easier mob, so did the other guild.  They didn't just automatically assume we were going to kill it and then head to MO.  They also went to Hurricanus like we did hoping they would be able to kill the encounter.  And that's exactly what they should have done, because they could indeed kill Hurricanus but didn't stand a chance against MO.  And when you're talking about a guild that has gotten maybe 2 contested the entire expansion, I highly doubt they are worried about getting practice on a mob that we own in a little over a 100 seconds that they have never been able to get below 70%.  The right thing to do for them was try Hurricanus because they actually had a chance rather than attempt a mob it's obvious they do not have the DPS for.  This is on a case to case basis but naturally when multiple contested are up, the easiest of them all would also have the highest "contested" factor involved and therefore get priority.</P>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>snarkteeth wrote:<BR></P> <P>Or they could all pop at 3am and said guild would wake up and kill them. very flavourless!</P> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I'm only on line the time I'm on line, and I don't (and can't, because of a day job) log on at 3 A.M. and during U.S. business hours.  I wouldn't log on at 3 A.M. even for a chance at the Kobal BP of Ultimate Destruction =p  Besides, nobody can call and wake me up anyway <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>I know from experience that when something pops during certain hours, a guild like mine with a roster below 24 usually cannot attempt until enough people log on.  I guess I'd be surprised to learn that any guild on any server had true 24/7 capabilities, and could muster a raid force capable of killing MO both at 3 A.M. or 3 P.M.</P> <P>But I've been wrong before and there is no doubt I'll be wrong again, so please educate me if you believe differently <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>These are just my ideas to improve EQ2 and make things more fun and interesting and equally fair for all guilds by introducing a new form of sport and game strategy into contested spawns.  I don't want people to think that me and my guild are evil and greedy people just because we have the skill and motivation to try and win everything.  I personally would get the same feeling of "sport" and competitive thrill if the system was redesigned so my guild had to make a decision about what we want most, then act in our best interest to get that instead of all the lesser stuff as well.<BR></P>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> KrayzieKal wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>I see your point about possibly wanting to go to the harder mobs first, but I disagree.  This topic in general is based on an event that has only happened once or twice on my server ( multiple contested being up at same time, it just dont happen often because they always die within an hour of spawning&nbsp<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so it's really hard to judge.  However, in both cases where there were multiple mobs up and we decided to go to the easier mob, so did the other guild.  They didn't just automatically assume we were going to kill it and then head to MO.  They also went to Hurricanus like we did hoping they would be able to kill the encounter.  And that's exactly what they should have done, because they could indeed kill Hurricanus but didn't stand a chance against MO.  And when you're talking about a guild that has gotten maybe 2 contested the entire expansion, I highly doubt they are worried about getting practice on a mob that we own in a little over a 100 seconds that they have never been able to get below 70%.  The right thing to do for them was try Hurricanus because they actually had a chance rather than attempt a mob it's obvious they do not have the DPS for.  This is on a case to case basis but naturally when multiple contested are up, the easiest of them all would also have the highest "contested" factor involved and therefore get priority.</BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I believe that if what you described happened more than a couple times, the other guild would eventually understand that they will get nothing *ever* by racing you to Hurricanus first when MO is up.  And that is because you can probably mobilize to Hurricanus just a bit faster than they can, and have had much more experience killing the encounter, so you are going to get it first pull, where that would be very uncertain for them even if they got there first with sufficient players.</P> <P>So, while it is hard and cold truth, practice on MO and the certainty of mender fees and exp debt still has greater value than a guarantee of nothing from Hurricanus.</P> <P>And they would ultimately realize this and act in their own best interest to learn the MO encounter while you are mobilizing for and fighting Hurricanus.  This would be even more true if six encounters spawned at once rather than two.  Rather than racing from easiest to hardest and losing everything, they would quickly realize that it is in their best interest to go to the encounter that is either the next-easiest or the next-difficult to the one you went to.<BR></P>

[The-Fourm-Pirate]

I really like this idea, it would help lag without instancing and it would give up and coming guilds a chance to hit contesteds, rather than the one guild that beat all of the contesteds first having a virtual monopoly on them unless they get really unlucky.

[Unmask]

I'd love it if there was a way to lower lag due to contesteds that didn't remove their contested nature.Regarding that super rare contested, I'd rather than it just being a random spawn, it would require a set of specific actions to be performed in the prior period (e.g. last month) for the spawn to occur in the next (e.g. this month). Otherwise I think I'd rather see 4 separate weekly contested encounters added than 1 monthly one.

[HomeChicken]

<DIV>i would love to see how something like this would work, but chances are it would end up with just the *major* guild on any given server dominating the contested mobs, and not having to worry about camping any more for a week +/- at all.</DIV> <DIV>it takes more than 1-2 pulls to figure out most encounters in this game, especially the contested mobs, and any guild that hasnt already killed the encounters, if ALL the contested mobs are up, the *main* raiding guild on the server is prolly gonna form up first, get there fast and kill whatever one they want early on, and just be able to jump from mob to mob, there is a learning curve that was mentioned, that for some of the harder mobs it may have taken a day or two of pulls, uninterupted, lag free pulls to really figure it out, and i can guarantee you that if i took my guild to kill hurricanus first and princes / MO were both up, in the time it would take us to pull and kill hurricanus, anyone at princes / MO would get at BEST 1 -2 pulls in on those mobs, we kill hurricanus, move on to princes, pull them and kill them, and move on, you need more than the 5-10 minutes it takes to form up / kill mob / assign loot / run to next zone and pull that mob to really learn any of the *harder* contested mobs</DIV> <DIV>i think this would be a great idea, it could really work, or it could just make the gap between the *hardcore* raiding guild on any given server and the *casual* raiding guilds that much bigger, really depends on the competition on any given server, some servers i bet it would work out great</DIV> <DIV>other servers it would basicly be taking the *other* raiding guilds and throwing them into the deep end of the pool with a weight strapped to their leg, and telling them they better figure out what they are gonna do QUICK, because if all 3 of the main contested mobs spawned at the same time right now, i wouldnt have any problems forming a raid up super fast with whoever i could get, killing hurricanus while any others are getting there, and just tellin anyone else in my guild ok go to XXXXX zone next, they are there waiting, maybe another guild is there getting ready, or pulling, but in the time it would take to kill hurricanus they are gettin 1 MAYBE 2 pulls on the next hardest mob, well if they dont already know the encounter, that 10 minutes or so aint gonna be enough, we could just swoop right in, kill that mob and then on to the next hardest mob, if you are on a server where your the *underdogs* in the raiding scene, if your competition is one of those *hardcore* raiding guilds, if you dont figure out the encounters FAST you will never have a chance</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>as i see it, for my guild it would be sweet, maybe im wrong, but i think it would really screw over others that their best bet would be that guild A was in an instance already that they wouldnt leave for whatever contested, or they just arent watching it close enough, or not enough online, but if all contested mobs were up at once, i can guarantee you whatever zone my guild was in, we would leave wiht a fully formed raid force, ready to kill them all</DIV> <DIV>and in my experience it takes more time waiting on the porters / getting 23 invites sent out than it does to actually kill the mobs</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>/shrugs</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>just my 2c</DIV>

[quamdar]

i think one of the cooler ideas for contested was cubes (though VERY VERY poorly done).  that way you have several contested mobs then you have the "uber contested" that requires all the other ones parts to spawn it so you can only have one per spawn cycle max if no one takes a mob from you and would obvisouly be the hardest and have the best loot.  though i don't know that they should do something exactly like this right away again i liked that this was a bit different because anything that is different and requires some dev thought is great.also i think the month long contested might be a bit overkill but i do think that there should be contested on different timers (anything from a 2-5 day spawns to 4-9 day spawns up to a 12-18 day spawns and multiple times between) just make them more random than they are i hate knowing we have a certain amount of days before we even can see a contested mob again (big part of this is because we only really have 3 atm but they also have very predictable timers).<div></div>

[SinIsLaw]

while loads of you folks like contested how they work etc ... I personally have started to hate em, why - to much dirty game play involved with it ... I've been trained and purposly lagged out trying to beat contested - and dev response was "sure um yeah we look at it ..."   - takes  a lot  of fun form the game! So I'd applaud the idea of haveing a "contested portal" where guilds zone into an instance and can beat the encounter with max 24 peeps and no outside involvement !!! let as many guilds be able to zone into the instance ... no rev inside the zone (block zerging) ... the second any guild has killed the contested, the other instances stay up - but have their loot table removed. - portal despawns on kill - That way, new guilds can learn an encounter, dirty play is amost taken off the game (zerging, training, 24+ peeps, taking over un-resetted spawn (aka 3 princess), lags should be less). So in a way it should make peeps more happy, at least everyone can try an kill the mob xyz - only the fastest one gets the loot!<div></div>

[electricninjasex]

<div></div>I deplore handouts.  Handicapping a better guild to give a lesser guild an advantage in a contest demeans the talents and trivializes the hard work of the better guild.  If a contested pops, you go to it.  You don't drag your feet and whine, "but we won't win it anyway."  If you get two pulls then you better make the best of those two pulls, and study that log file until you get another two pulls a week from now.  If you aren't willing to go balls to the wall to knock #1 down a notch, then F you, you're lazy and I don't want to be guilded with you.  I'm not the kind of person to say this to anyone's face but god knows I'm thinking it.  It's tough love but it's the truth.<p>Message Edited by electricninjasex on <span class=date_text>09-11-2006</span> <span class=time_text>08:22 AM</span>

[Gaellen]

Any solution at all that cuts down the lag would be fine.  We don't drag out feet because we might not kill it, or we don't wait repair costs, or we think Guild X will be there first.  To many key people don't have the connections or PC's to deal with the zone lag, so the idea if trying is dead in the water.  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Dejah]

<DIV>I like raiding.  I dislike lag.  And I'm not talking about "graphics lag".  I'm talking about network lag.  I'm talking about the server-having-a-heart-attack-causing-a-four-second-delay-between-spells lag.  It's not fun for a class that relies on chain casting spells to keep up their DPS.  I also dislike whining.  I dislike hearing people complain about getting 2 frames per second while we are attempting a pull.  I dislike hearing the brigand say they couldn't get the dispatch off because their frame rate was so horrible from the 100+ people standing in the proximity that they were unable to position themselves to get the attack off.  I dislike telling people they need to spend hundreds of dollars upgrading their computers. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I like raiding.  I like contesteds too.  I like instances more though.  With instances everyone has the same chances to defeat the encounter, it comes down to skill and gear and getting lucky with spawn times has nothing to do with it.  You can either do it, or you can't do it.  If you can do it, you win.  If you can't, you lose. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I like contesteds; I don't think they should get rid of them.  However, I'd personally prefer to have the dev's devote their time to creating and improving instanced raid content; specifically, creating some sort of progression in terms of difficulty and loot. </DIV>

[Argyuile]

    Going on Ixnays suggestion what if they all popped at the same time but the pop was random.  So time zone wouldnt be an issue.   They would pop at a random time (which could be any timezone)  and just all be up at the same time.    Seems to solve most problems for me.   Then the guilds see one and have to decide which one they really really want.<div></div>

[Unmask]

<blockquote><hr>KrayzieKal wrote:and maybe even a "super" contested with a 1 month respawn time that drops 5-6 fabled.<hr></blockquote>Peraps this "super-contested" could even be on a 1-2 week timer but it only pops once time world wide, not one time per server. There would be things guilds could do to get it to pop on their server instead of another's to instill some cross server competition.

[Jora']

<DIV>Also having the EOF contesteds pop in a random locations would be a positive move. It could even be in one of several locations.   Maybe it could even pop in one of several zones, and not just the same one.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Other than that, a lesson learnt for us in KoS is that a guild who can form 24x7 and can level their raid force to 70 in a couple of weeks of committed, hardcore raiders, with enough effort and determination, monopolise every one of the contested encounters in a lag free environment. To compete at any level, other guilds then have to do the same, to have some hope of having time to learn, and finally kill a kos contested, and I'm not entirely sure soe wants to encourage this. But come the next level cap, when and if there is one.. I definitely will be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Aurelius</DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>Message Edited by Jora' on <span class=date_text>09-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>12:10 AM</span>

[Aandien]

<DIV>they should just make a 'pseudo' lock-out timer on the contested.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you killed it last, you can't engage it within the first 24 hours of it respawning.  That way other guilds have a small window of time they can attempt to kill the contested.  if they don't kill it, then the guild that killed it last time can go in and kill it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As it stands now, the contested aren't really 'contested' at all.  They are essentially monopolized by 1 guild on every server.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Having 6 or 3 or 10 all popping at the same time won't do anything either except make the whole problem worse.  The guilds that monopolize these encounters take a whole 10-15 minutes to get there and kill the mob during their raid time.  So all it will do is allow these guilds an easier time monopolizing every single spawn -- since they will all be up at the same time and then can just kill them all in the same hour -- while they are already formed and raiding.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sure, they might lose 1 or 2 to another guild every now and then -- but it would be a rare occurance.</DIV>

[Pitt Hammerfi]

Basically it all boils down to how much time and how far youll go to get these mobs, And pretty much how much of a life you have.Me personally, it would take a Mac truck bursting through my bedroom to wake me up at 4.00 am monday night.

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> AncientElster wrote:<BR> <DIV>they should just make a 'pseudo' lock-out timer on the contested.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you killed it last, you can't engage it within the first 24 hours of it respawning.  That way other guilds have a small window of time they can attempt to kill the contested.  if they don't kill it, then the guild that killed it last time can go in and kill it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>As it stands now, the contested aren't really 'contested' at all.  They are essentially monopolized by 1 guild on every server.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I really disagree here - they are contested, in that every guild has an equal opportunity to engage them.  </P> <P>No guild should be taxed for being the last to beat an encounter, that would be like Welfare within EQ2.</P> <P>The solution I proposed was one where you would get something more than you have now - an opportunity to engage something that you presently don't have.  Making contested mobs stay up for 24 hours before a hardcore guild can engage them, so a casual guild can mobilize and engage them at their convenience, is the farthest thing from "competitive".  I don't believe they could implement such a plan anyway, if we couldn't engage these mobs on our main characters, we would do so with similar success on our alt guild.</P> <P>Please try and think of a solution where we both win, rather than where you just win at my expense.<BR></P>

[Aandien]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>IPlease try and think of a solution where we both win, rather than where you just win at my expense.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>We do both win.  Suppose my guild and your guild are on the same server -- and both are capable of killing the same contested.  Also lets say we both raid at different times.</P> <P>You will get 50% of the contested, and I will get 50% of the contested.</P> <P>This is still a contested spawn -- because in the scenario where 3 or more guilds raid at the same time, then 2 of them will always get to compete and swap pulls on the contested -- the winner of last week is the only one who has to sit out on the first night.</P> <P>Currently though, if your guild starts raiding an hour before mine, then you get 98% of the contested (anything outside my raid time becomes your raid time), and I get 2% (it has to spawn in a specific 2-4 hour block of time for me to get it) of the contested. </P> <P>With a pseudo-lockout -- its not possible for you to do that.  Well, unless you can take it down with alts -- which you may very well be able to do, but that would be a very unlikely scenario (at least I hope so in EOF ... if they have good item progression).</P><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class=date_text>09-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:00 AM</span>

[Pins]

<blockquote><hr>AncientElster wrote: <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>IPlease try and think of a solution where we both win, rather than where you just win at my expense.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>We do both win.  Suppose my guild and your guild are on the same server -- and both are capable of killing the same contested.  Also lets say we both raid at different times.</P> <P>You will get 50% of the contested, and I will get 50% of the contested.</P> <P>This is still a contested spawn -- because in the scenario where 3 or more guilds raid at the same time, then 2 of them will always get to compete and swap pulls on the contested -- the winner of last week is the only one who has to sit out on the first night.</P> <P>Currently though, if your guild starts raiding an hour before mine, then you get 98% of the contested (anything outside my raid time becomes your raid time), and I get 2% (it has to spawn in a specific 2-4 hour block of time for me to get it) of the contested. </P> <P>With a pseudo-lockout -- its not possible for you to do that.  Well, unless you can take it down with alts -- which you may very well be able to do, but that would be a very unlikely scenario (at least I hope so in EOF ... if they have good item progression).</P><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class=date_text>09-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:00 AM</span><hr></blockquote> Somebody on <a href=http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=echoesoffaydwer&message.id=11089 target=_blank>this</a> post sounds exactly like AncientElster, I don't think this argument about contesteds needs to be done again and again, just to end up with the same exact responses.

[Leawyn]

<DIV>LFG's idea is great. The hard core guilds would stop messing with the "easier" mobs and work on the harder mobs if they had to choose between 6 different mobs. <EM>AS LONG AS THE LOOT PROVIDES A LOGICAL PROGRESSION. </EM>They would more likely prefer the medium-hard mobs for the "better loot" and leave the "lesser loot" (all perception folks!) to other guilds. Would there still be "fights" over contested? Yeah, but with 6 to choose from, I hardly see how more than 2 guilds would be present for any of them. At least on Nektulos, there simply aren't enough raiding guilds for that. Why waste your time watching another guild kill a mob in Zone Y, or pray for a wipe, when you could be over in Zone X killing a different mob?</DIV>

[Krontak]

<P>Only one problem with this whole scenario, the hard core raid guilds woud go for the easier encounters 'cause they would result in better loot then go down the more difficult encounter just for fun.  :smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>Someone linked another discussion about contested where I had mentioned to throw t7 contested into some of the lower tier, less populated zones with the EOF expansion.  If not with this expansion have a t7 contested x4 expansion pack that introduced t7 contested in all the tiered zones.  I'm talking like 30+ or so contested.  That would definatly introduce some overlap of contested during high traffic gaming hours.  And for the ones that pop during low hours well, its low hours so there shoudn't be too many people there.</P> <P>If your system can't handle the contested then don't do the contested.  I don't enjoy the lag but to be honest it doesn't affect me too much even though I got a system for less than a 1k.  Get with the program and updrade.  I think the competition of contested is great the way it is we just need like 10x more of it and spread out into less populated zones.</P>

[Pins]

<blockquote><hr>Krontak wrote: <P>Only one problem with this whole scenario, the hard core raid guilds woud go for the easier encounters 'cause they would result in better loot then go down the more difficult encounter just for fun.  :smileyvery-happy:</P> <P>Someone linked another discussion about contested where I had mentioned to throw t7 contested into some of the lower tier, less populated zones with the EOF expansion.  If not with this expansion have a t7 contested x4 expansion pack that introduced t7 contested in all the tiered zones.  I'm talking like 30+ or so contested.  That would definatly introduce some overlap of contested during high traffic gaming hours.  And for the ones that pop during low hours well, its low hours so there shoudn't be too many people there.</P> <P>If your system can't handle the contested then don't do the contested.  I don't enjoy the lag but to be honest it doesn't affect me too much even though I got a system for less than a 1k.  Get with the program and updrade.  I think the competition of contested is great the way it is we just need like 10x more of it and spread out into less populated zones.</P><hr></blockquote> Go have some guild pull MO when there's 3 other guilds waiting there, and you're at drednever crash site and lagging. And then tell me, it's graphical lag.

[Krontak]

I've been there at MO with 3+ guilds and seriously I don't get a ton of lag.  There's the occasional lag spike but heck, that even happens in instanced zones.  Maybe you guys got a [Removed for Content] server.  But like I said, if they would spread out the contested in less populated zones it would get rid of a few of these problems that you and others have brought up I'd guess.<p>Message Edited by Krontak on <span class=date_text>09-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:49 AM</span>

[pera]

My Idea to help a bit with the lag in zones that host contested mobs if fairly straight forward. Basicly replace every place a contested can spawn through out the eq2 world with a 'Portal'  basicly this protal would be the entrance to the contested lair.  Instead of a mob spawning at the location theportal would. This portal would act as a gateway to the contested mob, yes basicly an instances. but wait before you start compaining here i have more on this. The rules that the portals/instances will follow are 1.) Which ever raid clicks first on the portal will be first to enter.  There must be at least 12 people in raid to enter the portal. 2.) Once the intial raid has zoned in NOONE may zone in the portal becomes locked. (ie you cannot bring extra poeple in). 3.) The raid will have 5 min to engague the contested mob on their ownor be ported to its location. (and killed in a proper maner <img src="../../i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" border="0" height="16" width="16"> ) 4.) There is no revive point in zone.  The revive point will be directly outside the portal. 5.) Anyone that /camps in zone will be booted from the zone on return. (ie no one can revive you if you fail). 6.) If any members in the raid are dead, when the encounter resets (ie you die and fail)  you will have 5 min to revive on your own or you will be booted from the zone, and revived automaticly outside the portal). 7.) engaging the mob will function like chel'drak it will make sure everyone is in the room shortly after the encounter starts. 8.) There is only a 2 min lockout when the last person zones out on the contested portal if you zone out.  But to zone back in at least 12 members must be close enough to zone in. (protal will be come locked again. none can enter). This will help a lot with the greafing and lag that comes along with contested mobs.  And dont just bash this because its an 'instanced mob' because its not really just the place you fight him is instanced, the portal is not and ist still contested.  With the rules of the zone not allowing it to be camped and preventing other from enter will give a bit of help to prevent cocckblocking. Curious if anyone has any other suggestions. If SoE ever gets around to upgrading their servers or designing zones to be able to handle high populations then things like this probably wont be needed.( yeah sure I expect that whenhell freezes over)<div></div>

[Pins]

<blockquote><hr>perano wrote:Stuff<hr></blockquote>So, why should we be forced a minimium requirement to kill a mob? And 5-minutes to engage without ever being able to look at the mob, is [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. You'd be zoning in, looking at it, deciding a strat, oh [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] we all got zoned out ... Yah, that's inteligent design ...Fix the server problems, don't work around the mwith [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] that destroys immersion, not to mention, you gain 0 information on the mob until you zone in, so if you're new to the contested, you zone in, take a look at it, and then bam you're zoned out, and then the other guild zones in, kills it, and you are never given a chance to pull to figure it out. Contesteds are contesteds, they are not instanced. They need to be open for viewing to make sure some random various guild doesn't exploit them and continue on with it. Not to mention, casual players seeing a contested mob being killed can look at it and go, wow that is [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing awesome. Now, they can't, and so they have nothing to look up to doing.

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Krontak wrote:<BR> <P>If your system can't handle the contested then don't do the contested.  I don't enjoy the lag but to be honest it doesn't affect me too much even though I got a system for less than a 1k.  Get with the program and updrade.  I think the competition of contested is great the way it is we just need like 10x more of it and spread out into less populated zones.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>The lag at contested spawns is crippling, with 2+ second delays on cast times and virtually unplayable video lag, despite the fact that:</P> <P>-I live less than 400 miles from the EQ2 server I play on.</P> <P>-I live one block from the Comcast relay station that provides my high speed Internet connection.</P> <P>-My system is less than six months old, and includes the most expensive components I could buy when I put it together, including a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, NVidia 9700 GT OC card, 4 gigs RAM, and twin WD 10K RPM drives running in RAID 0.  I tried running the same 9700 cards in SLI on this machine, but didn't notice any performance difference, so just put the second card in a machine I use for an alt.</P> <P>The problem is not related to my system, it involves the fact that the server cannot handle 200 players in the same area, with at least 100 of those players standing behind the raid less than 20 feet.</P> <P>When we are lagged this badly, my guild can usually still beat these encounters, but it is like playing on a "super hard" setting instead of an "easy" or "moderate" setting without the lag.  This gives guilds like mine a HUGE advantage over guilds that haven't previously beaten these encounters.  With this unplayable lag, a guild that hasn't beat this encounter before has no hope of winning.<BR></P>

[Krontak]

<P>Maybe SOE needs to create an even smaller radius load setting so you don't load anything 50+ meters out if you choose.  And if that doesn't work well enough, turn us all into stick figures with Ultima I style graphics!  Just kidding about the graphics but I would think a smaller load radius would definatly be feasable and help a ton.  But like I mentioned to someone else, pinske i think it was, possibly you are on a [Removed for Content] server that's overloaded or has system problems.  It wouldn't be the first time one server is complaining of worse conditions than the next.  Tell the admins to stop downloading so much [Removed for Content] on your server as pornography is the leading cause of lag in most US households according to the latest CNN poll!</P> <P>With all the system, networking examples you just provided and if there is still a ton of lag (2+ seconds) I suspect something else is at play.  Maybe BB wasn't such a bad place after all eh?  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P>Once EoF is out, the lag in the last expansion will be diminished as most of the population will be exploring these new zones and now the lag will be introduced into this new expansion unfortunatly.  Lag will be there for not only raid guilds contested unfortunatly but for everyday guilds group content.  I think everyone remember SoS during the first week of release...talk about warping.    I know this was about raid content but I was just throwing that out there for the purpose of new content and population argument...</P> <P>I'd hate to see contested go away as they are now.  I'm hoping that the following happen:</P> <P>A. The population will slowely spread out and this will be less of an issue as we see more expansions released.</P> <P>B. SOE figures out a solution to diminish the lag as we see it, either by technological advances or software driven solutions.</P> <P>C. A and B.</P>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Krontak wrote:<BR> <P>But like I mentioned to someone else, pinske i think it was, possibly you are on a [Removed for Content] server that's overloaded or has system problems.  It wouldn't be the first time one server is complaining of worse conditions than the next.  Tell the admins to stop downloading so much [Removed for Content] on your server as pornography is the leading cause of lag in most US households according to the latest CNN poll!</P> <P></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>I transferred from your server to mine in May.  The lag issues were no different here than they were there on 3 princes for example, when SoN, Fu and Amend were all attempting those encounters on BB at the same time.  I can't comment on the MO lag because nobody had beaten it on BB by the time I left, and when we tried it with Amend in those earlier times we had the spawn to ourselves almost all the time, nobody else was really attempting the encounter back then.</P> <P>So I can't imagine there would now be extreme differences in performance between your server and mine.  And the lag I'm talking about isn't very noticeable when you are just watching the encounters - I'm talking about lag while fighting the encounters.  There is a mammoth difference in lag between just watching and actually fighting.</P> <P>Has your guild beaten Princes or MO - or gotten past 50% health on the mobs - with 3 other guilds standing less than 30 feet from where you are fighting?   I'm not suggesting your guild isn't capable, I'm just saying you cannot possibly understand how intense and game-breaking this lag is until you are actually fighting the encounters in those conditions.</P>

[Krontak]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote: <P><BR>I'm just saying you cannot possibly understand how intense and game-breaking this lag is until you are actually fighting the encounters in those conditions.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I'm talking about the same stuff u are and fought with 100+ people standing around and I'd hate for that experience to go away.  What fun are contested if there isn't a bunch of guilds there.  I'd much rather they didn't change the concept behind contested and dealt with the issue software/hardware wise is all I'm saying.

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Pinski wrote:<BR><BR>Not to mention, casual players seeing a contested mob being killed can look at it and go, wow that is [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing awesome. Now, they can't, and so they have nothing to look up to doing.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I agree 100% - contested mobs must always be in the open where they can be seen.  Nothing in EQ2 is more awe inspiring than seeing a full sized dragon for the first time.  The first dragon I ever saw was in The Commonlands, and I immediately knew when I saw it that my calling in this game was raiding rather than tradeskills, and that just playing in exp groups and doing instances would never come close to raiding for me.</P> <P>With so many raid encounters now instanced, only a fraction of the player base will ever be able to see such amazing content as the Godking instance, with all that amazing artwork and those unique monster models.  And I'd suspect that less than one player in 500 who has ever played this game will ever see the inside of DMP or the Djinn Master.  I think that's a huge shame.</P> <P>I think it is unfair to the entire playerbase to confine ANY content to an instance, especially the best and most amazing content.  Instancing content prevents most players from ever seeing it, let alone watching another guild fight it.  And being able to see this does inspire many people to want to raid and progress in EQ2 themselves.<BR></P><p>Message Edited by Ixnay on <span class=date_text>09-12-2006</span> <span class=time_text>11:18 AM</span>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Krontak wrote:<BR> <BR>I'd much rather they didn't change the concept behind contested and dealt with the issue software/hardware wise is all I'm saying.<BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Ok, but I think it's far less costly, and therefore much more likely, to change a mechanic than spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on additional equipment to enable lag free raiding of contested mobs.

[quamdar]

yeah putting contested in an instance would not be a good idea.  if anything i think this would give guilds starting out an even tougher time since they couldn't watch the other guild kill it or look at there logs find out what it is immune too and find out what kind of AE it does or whatever.  that and lag is normally the only reason we don't kill a contested first shot.<div></div>

[Aandien]

<DIV>instancing it wont fix the combat lag anyway...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>try raiding an instance while 3 other guilds are doing the same instance.  You still get the 4-10 second CA lag anyway.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This game has some serious performance problems that simply need to be addressed -- either by using better hardware, or by improving the performance of the existing code.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>That aside,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>contested content is fine, it just needs to be equally contestable across all time-zones over time given the same amount of effort by all guilds.  It currently is not.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>mythical server A: 2 raid guilds, Guild A raids from 6pm-8pm, Guild B raids from 8pm-10pm.  Neither guild will raid outside that timeframe (thus they put forth exact equal effort).  If we assume a contested has to be spawned at the start of their raid time... Guild A gets contested spawn 92%% of the time (22 hours).  Guild B gets contested spawn 8% of the time (2 hours).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sure Guild B *COULD* go out of their way and log in 3 hours early to get the contested..but why should they have to?  Guild A doesn't have to do anything special to monopolize the spawns.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thats what they need to fix -- and that is why unless they add in some sort of insane amount of time-effort to actually even *attempt* a single contested, a single guild (or 2) will always monopolize all of the contested on a server that has guilds across a couple of different time-zones.  Even a 1 hour time-difference is more than enough in the current scenario to keep 3 contesteds locked (because they only take 5-15 minutes to kill).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Leawyn]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Ixnay wrote:<BR> <BR> <P>I think it is unfair to the entire playerbase to confine ANY content to an instance, especially the best and most amazing content.  Instancing content prevents most players from ever seeing it, let alone watching another guild fight it.  And being able to see this does inspire many people to want to raid and progress in EQ2 themselves.<BR></P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Yep... the day I spent 2 hours watching guilds fight over VazGok back in the day, when I was a wee little level 30-something, I knew I wanted to do that some day.

[Riversideblues]

see, if they had more contested epic content like in t5, more lower end or casual level 70 guilds could get the mobs just becuse of the fact that the high end ones wont always be able to keep everything on lockdown which is what we do now since there's only 3 =<div></div>

[pera]

Aye, there need to be at least 3-4 times  more contested than their currently are per teir.  and meathooks and borg, and the cubes in bonmire dont count because they are just [Removed for Content] trash.<div></div>

[KrayzieK]

As far as I'm concerned they owe us 3 contested for instancing Gorenaire/Talendor/Harla Dar.  Oh yeah, a contested X2 because of what they did with Haraghur.  That's 4 mobs that were contested at the beginning of KoS that later got changed.  Why not just add a contested version of all these mobs that are non quest related that have their own loot tables, similiar to what they did in T6 with Barakah and Siyamak.  There were 3 versions of each of those ...

[jago quicksilver]

<div><blockquote><hr>AncientElster wrote:<div>instancing it wont fix the combat lag anyway...</div> <div> </div> <div>try raiding an instance while 3 other guilds are doing the same instance.  You still get the 4-10 second CA lag anyway.</div> <div> </div> <div>This game has some serious performance problems that simply need to be addressed -- either by using better hardware, or by improving the performance of the existing code.</div> <div> </div> <div>That aside,</div> <div> </div> <div>contested content is fine, it just needs to be equally contestable across all time-zones over time given the same amount of effort by all guilds.  It currently is not.</div> <div> </div> <div>mythical server A: 2 raid guilds, Guild A raids from 6pm-8pm, Guild B raids from 8pm-10pm.  Neither guild will raid outside that timeframe (thus they put forth exact equal effort).  If we assume a contested has to be spawned at the start of their raid time... Guild A gets contested spawn 92%% of the time (22 hours).  Guild B gets contested spawn 8% of the time (2 hours).</div> <div> </div> <div>Sure Guild B *COULD* go out of their way and log in 3 hours early to get the contested..but why should they have to?  Guild A doesn't have to do anything special to monopolize the spawns.</div> <div> </div> <div>Thats what they need to fix -- and that is why unless they add in some sort of insane amount of time-effort to actually even *attempt* a single contested, a single guild (or 2) will always monopolize all of the contested on a server that has guilds across a couple of different time-zones.  Even a 1 hour time-difference is more than enough in the current scenario to keep 3 contesteds locked (because they only take 5-15 minutes to kill).</div> <div> </div><hr></blockquote>i really think that you need to look at this a little bit better. just because a guild will not get on when a contested spawns doesnt mean that its unfair in any way. i play on a server that has 5-6 raiding guilds in at least 3 different time zones, that are nowhere even close to each other, but only 1 guild really gets a shot at contested, and not because spawns favor us. The only thing that isnt "fair" is solely the fault of the raiding guilds that do not want to log in when a contested spawns to kill it.</div>

[jago quicksilver]

on another note, if killing a contested was a real big guild to either guild, they would try to put out more effort than the other, and effort cannot be based solely on the amount of time that Guild A or Guild B raid.

[MeridianR]

Try fighting Princes for 12 mins due to skill lag in Barren Sky......personally I love contested mobs and would love for them to stay the same, but there needs to be some sort of way to combat 20 sec at a time skill lag.Now whether or not someone was causing our lag is another topic, but it was ridiculous......I don't know how to do it (throwing hardware at it I don't think would work), but something needs to be done.<div></div>

[vinterskugge]

I'd rather they didn't try and make workarounds for lag and just fixed their game to stop it happening instead.

[Dejah]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Ixnay wrote:</P> <P>-My system is less than six months old, and includes the most expensive components I could buy when I put it together, including a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, NVidia <STRONG>9700</STRONG> GT OC card, 4 gigs RAM, and twin WD 10K RPM drives running in RAID 0.  I tried running the same <STRONG>9700</STRONG> cards in SLI on this machine, but didn't notice any performance difference, so just put the second card in a machine I use for an alt.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>9700? o_O</P> <P>The 7900 cards are pretty good.  I know what you mean about SLI though.  Unless I'm running aa then I take a perf hit when I enable SLI.  Ixnay knows what he's talking about though.  This isn't a "graphics lag" issue.  If I turn all my settings down I can get 100+ fps at Three Princes when there are 100+ people in the area.  I'd still get a massive delay between casting spells even though I'm queueing everything.  The lag is seriously a problem. </P> <P>Ixnay's idea is an interesting one.  It might even be something that SOE can try out, since all it involves is modifying spawn timers to be syncronized.  There are the usual questions though, like, what if mob A was killed and then a week later mob B was killed, does mob B respawn the next day when mob A is due to respawn?  It could work, but I don't think it will really change much, other than give people more of an incentive to wake up in the middle of the night for these spawns and miss work the next day.</P> <P>Personally I don't think that contested content requires that the content is not instanced.  There are many many ways that sony could add contested content but keep it instanced and thus lag free.  I know many will disagree with me on that though.</P>

[Ixnay]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Dejah wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <P></P> <HR> <P>Ixnay wrote:</P> <P>-My system is less than six months old, and includes the most expensive components I could buy when I put it together, including a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, NVidia <STRONG>9700</STRONG> GT OC card, 4 gigs RAM, and twin WD 10K RPM drives running in RAID 0.  I tried running the same <STRONG>9700</STRONG> cards in SLI on this machine, but didn't notice any performance difference, so just put the second card in a machine I use for an alt.</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>9700? o_O</P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>Yes lol, my bad, 7900 is what I meant.</P> <P>And I completely agree with you regarding the difference between graphic lag and server or packet lag, whatever you want to call it.  The game-breaking response delays and slowness I'm referring to occurs whether my graphics are turned down to claymation resolution or up to very high, which I normally use.<BR></P>

[pera]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Ixnay wrote:<div></div> <blockquote> <hr> Dejah wrote: <div></div> <blockquote> <p></p> <hr> <p>Ixnay wrote:</p> <p>-My system is less than six months old, and includes the most expensive components I could buy when I put it together, including a AMD Athlon 64 3800+ processor, NVidia <strong>9700</strong> GT OC card, 4 gigs RAM, and twin WD 10K RPM drives running in RAID 0.  I tried running the same <strong>9700</strong> cards in SLI on this machine, but didn't notice any performance difference, so just put the second card in a machine I use for an alt.</p> <hr> </blockquote> <p>9700? o_O</p> <hr> </blockquote> <p>Yes lol, my bad, 7900 is what I meant.</p> <p>And I completely agree with you regarding the difference between graphic lag and server or packet lag, whatever you want to call it.  The game-breaking response delays and slowness I'm referring to occurs whether my graphics are turned down to claymation resolution or up to very high, which I normally use.</p><hr></blockquote>I have to agree here its defently not graphical because you can see everything as pretty as day moving around, but with really bad server lag only thing you will notice differnt is your abilites will pause at the last instance before they are cast, bascily just freezing there.  Normaly once they go through you will also see things warp a bit on your screen because the delay from the server was so long things had moved by the time the network trafic caught up. Nother way to see this exact same thing is go into some area (preferable where you know you wont die <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ) start using your abilites just randome ones like buffs and what not that you dont need a target for.  after a bit getting down exactly how long it will tak for them to cast and take effect.  Unplug your net cable from your router, (the cable going to your DSL, or cable box,if you have one) you will have about 30 seconds of simulated server lag, before the game kicks you out for ld.  during this time try to cast your spells,  you will see the pause at the last instance in the casting time bar,  if you plug backinthe cable before you ~30 runs up you will be able to cast again. I know this is a rugged simulation but it shows exactly what is happening.  Basicly Eq2 is using UDP packets to sycn with the server on client side things, and since UDP is a connectionless protocal if  the servers cannot respond to the packets in a timely manor there will be a good amount of lag in client side applications because they are waiting on a responce..  What is happening is Eq2 sends out a UDP msg to the server and bascily waits for a responce, something like an OK, yeah i have no idea on message flow but this is what i see just from observation.  When ther server is overburnded and cant handel the message load it will cause massive laggs through out the clients connected to that server.  ie causing casting/ability lag. ( just to note, when pulling the net cable it HAS to be the cable from your router to your WAN connection. The reason for this is if you pull the net cable into your system most network libraries should through INET failures if the target interface (ie your net card) is not physicaly connected to anything) just my 2cp <p>Message Edited by perano on <span class="date_text">09-13-2006</span> <span class="time_text">05:13 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by perano on <span class=date_text>09-13-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:14 PM</span>