Thoughts on rok contested mobs

[seistaan1]

<p>There may or may not be contested mobs. The devs don't feel they bring much to the game for the amount of development needed to create them (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them</p><p>While everything is sounding very interesting theres something awe inspiring about a contested mob. </p><p> Even if your not a raider or wouldnt even consider raiding theres that moment when you first run across one that sets you back and makes your gaming experiance richer. </p><p>As a very small lvl 14 first poking my nose into ant I see an ooc wow theres a dragon out here! Myself and my friends run over to see sprinting cause we didnt know it didtn fly away. I remember being lvl 45 back in the day running as fast as I possibly could to get away from this weird looking ice creature that just popped up out of the ice and geting smacked down in one hit.  As I looked around my dead corpse i spied the krathuk Holey moley WHAT IS THAT witch lead to asking around finding out why its there looking over even after it was gray every time I was there just too see it. And everyone i know gets shocked the first time they see the spider in sinking sands. Or exploring dreadnever in kos and looking down this weird cliff to see this giant Ugly bugg and thinking omg Giant ants attack. </p><p>Even now after three years of playing the first time i saw the pumpkin headed horseman i was yelling to my husband OMG come look at this freek of nature. </p><p>Even if you dont intend to kill it therse somthing about them that makes the game.. an unatainable foe...look at darathar lvl 100 your not killing him any time soon but everyone should see it at least once.. and maybe try to hit it <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>What im saying is think hard before you leave them completly out. Even if thers only one hiding .. in the tree waiting to smackdown the lowly wanderer who dares walk beneath. </p>

[Hardain]

I agree, contesteds are fun even if you can't kill them, just seeing those big, usually red con mobs add nice feeling to the zones, like back in T5 days. They are part of the scenery.

[AbsentmindedMage]

Well, if they have time left after doing the all the other stuff, I do not see a problem with them throwing in a contested or two beyond the 3 God Avatars.   My issue with contested mobs is you usually have a single raid guild on a server who kills it and puts it on a lock down timer so they know when to expect it to reappear and continue to kill it over and over.  So, the average player rarely if ever even sees these encounters until the high end of the game goes past the level of them.

[KennyG]

<cite>AbsentmindedMage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, if they have time left after doing the all the other stuff, I do not see a problem with them throwing in a contested or two beyond the 3 God Avatars.   My issue with contested mobs is you usually have a single raid guild on a server who kills it and puts it on a lock down timer so they know when to expect it to reappear and continue to kill it over and over.  So, the average player rarely if ever even sees these encounters until the high end of the game goes past the level of them. </blockquote>Easy solution:  Randomize the spawn more.  If I kill a contested mob and I know I can find it in exactly 7 days, to the minute standing where I just slayed it... of course I could lock it down.  But if it will respawn at a random interval between 2 and 12 days, and not necessarily at 9:00pm when I killed it, then that would make it a bit harder to "lock down" Harder solution (from a coding standpoint):  Prevent people from killing a specific contested mob more than once a month or something.  A bit extreme but it would be doable.  Just make the mob invisable/non-agro to those players. If you combine the above two solutions you could get really hard for people to lock down a mob at all.

[kenm]

<cite>KennyG wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>AbsentmindedMage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, if they have time left after doing the all the other stuff, I do not see a problem with them throwing in a contested or two beyond the 3 God Avatars.   My issue with contested mobs is you usually have a single raid guild on a server who kills it and puts it on a lock down timer so they know when to expect it to reappear and continue to kill it over and over.  So, the average player rarely if ever even sees these encounters until the high end of the game goes past the level of them. </blockquote>Easy solution:  Randomize the spawn more.  If I kill a contested mob and I know I can find it in exactly 7 days, to the minute standing where I just slayed it... of course I could lock it down.  But if it will respawn at a random interval between 2 and 12 days, and not necessarily at 9:00pm when I killed it, then that would make it a bit harder to "lock down" Harder solution (from a coding standpoint):  Prevent people from killing a specific contested mob more than once a month or something.  A bit extreme but it would be doable.  Just make the mob invisable/non-agro to those players. If you combine the above two solutions you could get really hard for people to lock down a mob at all. </blockquote>Best solution:  Add in so many contested mobs with overlapping timers that it's physically impossible for one guild to lock them all down.  If 5 mobs were to spawn at one time at different points all over the world, the only way a single guild could kill them is if no other guilds were even trying. And seriously, being prevented from killing a mob more than once a month is the worst idea I've ever heard.  What's so contested about if you alternate 5 guilds killing the mob while everybody else is "locked" from it for a month?  You wouldn't be competing with anybody, so you may as well just stick it in an instance with a 30 day lockout and be done with it.

[Kimage]

Valia@Venekor wrote: <blockquote><p>Even if you dont intend to kill it therse somthing about them that makes the game.. an unatainable foe...look at darathar lvl 100 your not killing him any time soon but everyone should see it at least once.. and maybe try to hit it <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote><p> *cough* its Naggy *cough* not Darathar - he's a X4 for prismatics.</p><p>Naggy is the awsome looking fire dragon in Sol's Eye instance.</p>

[Ookami-san]

<p>I don't mind contested mobs... but they should seriously do something to make them and the area around them a little more "in game".</p><p>Let's face it... there should be burned husks of trees, bodies, skeletons, maybe a treasure hoard around an epic dragon... not just a dragon sitting in the middle of a hill. </p><p>If it's a dragon... but it up a mountain, in a cave, with the thin ledge leading up to it.  Perhaps some worshipping goblin tribes around, etc.  Perhaps there's a gong or some other ritual that will summon the dragon from the cave, making it slightly easier to kill.  But the cave should be strwn with bodies, skeletons and gold piles to make it LOOK like a dragon's lair.</p><p>If it's some less intelligent beast... but a barren area around it... a truly powerful predator would have eaten anything around and scared off the rest.  Again... it should have a lair.... or a roaming path near a lair.</p><p>Epic mobs should be part of the scenary.  They should have a reason for being there and an impact on the surrounding area.</p>

[Kimage]

<cite>KennyG wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>AbsentmindedMage wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, if they have time left after doing the all the other stuff, I do not see a problem with them throwing in a contested or two beyond the 3 God Avatars.   My issue with contested mobs is you usually have a single raid guild on a server who kills it and puts it on a lock down timer so they know when to expect it to reappear and continue to kill it over and over.  So, the average player rarely if ever even sees these encounters until the high end of the game goes past the level of them. </blockquote>Easy solution:  Randomize the spawn more.  If I kill a contested mob and I know I can find it in exactly 7 days, to the minute standing where I just slayed it... of course I could lock it down.  But if it will respawn at a random interval between 2 and 12 days, and not necessarily at 9:00pm when I killed it, then that would make it a bit harder to "lock down" Harder solution (from a coding standpoint):  Prevent people from killing a specific contested mob more than once a month or something.  A bit extreme but it would be doable.  Just make the mob invisable/non-agro to those players. If you combine the above two solutions you could get really hard for people to lock down a mob at all. </blockquote><p> While I dont like the top raid guild that dominates my server..... I would have to say that not allowing them to kill a contested more than one month wouldnt really be fair to them. In most cases the contested X4 mobs are not cake. The Avatars are a perfect example. I stood there and watched Disso take the Avatar of War for 35 minutes of continuous fighting..... They DESERVE to be able to take down that contested when ever it spawns. They can do it -they fight for it and they should have the option of killing that specific contested when it is up. They are going to want to take the contested at every opportunity because of the loot. They want to gear thier toons to the best they can. Why prevent them from doing that?</p><p> That being said.....  Randomizing the spawn would be a great solution for other servers where there are more than one raiding guild capable of taking down the higher end contested raid mobs. I know that there are other raiding guilds on the nek server other than Disso that would like to take down many of the contested. Many do kill some of these contested.</p><p>( To all the raid guilds on Nek - I am not "bashing" your abilities or your current accomplishments on our server as to contested. )</p>

[Borias]

<p>Coming with the perspective of a pvper- contested mobs bring out the best and worst of people.  I have had some of the most enjoyable raid pvp over those spawns.  However, I also experience things such as ninja parachuting troubadors that charm the tank to wipe the raid.</p><p>Saying that, I feel that there should be contesteds in the expansion.  They act as a magnet for the action, and more action is always good.</p><p>It would be neat to tailor the landscape around them though, if it is a dragon with a breath weapon, have a lot of charred area, etc etc.  I like the sound of that.</p>

[Dasein]

Contested mobs really add very little to the game considering the resources involved in creating them. Really, they are content for maybe 1-2 guilds per server, and the rest have virtually no chance at them. It is only the hardest of hardcore raid guilds who will have the ability to muster a full, balanced raid force on a moments notice. I would much rather see the developers spend their time on content the majority of the playerbase can experience. Instead of having a single epic encounter spawn, have a dynamic event happen, which players can participate in. For example, a dragon might attack a city, and players would have to assist in the defense - this would mean healing injured people, putting out fires, manning ballistae and catapults and so on. Depending on what people do, the dragon might simply be driven off, but it might be killed. Rewards would be given for participation and outcome. What this does is creates both the Wow! factor of seeing impressive NPCs, but also allows more players to participate in an event at an active level.

[Tomanak]

<cite>Dasein wrote:</cite><blockquote><b>Contested mobs really add very little to the game considering the resources involved in creating them.</b> </blockquote><p>QFE</p><p>Contested are cool to see. They are nice competition for the guilds able to do them. Hardcore raiders need content too. Hug a raider today. </p><p>SOE isnt saying no contested in RoK. They are saying that in the list of priorities, contested are at the bottom of the list. They have a finite amount of resources available to apply towards this expansion. They obviously feel that they can get a greater return from those resources by applying them elsewhere. This is a business decision. When deciding how many bells and whistles to add to a program we dont look at what we can do, but whats the best we can do to meet the needs of the most end users in the time we have. Id rather have 1% of the users unhappy than 75%. Consider the amount of people who run a heroic instance versus the number who run Emerald Halls. Thousands vs hundreds Id bet. </p>

[TuinalOfTheNexus]

<p>The problem is that with contesteds working the way they do, they are invariably monopolised by one guild per server, meaning about ~300 people gamewide actually use the content. That's a terrible ratio of development time / usage; particularly when you consider the time invested in the graphics, encounter design, and loot design of something like the EoF Avatars. I'm sure this time could have been invested in creating an extra raid instance which would have been used by thousands, if not tens of thousands of players.</p><p>It's a simple fact with contested working the way they do, that they're not really "contested" at all, because everything is in favor of the guild that last killed them (they have better gear, they know roughly when the repop will be), and moreover there are seldom more than 24 people on a server willing to play the massive number of hours to catch them when they pop. It worked in EQ1 velious-era because <i>everything </i>was contested, so a guild couldn't monopolise the content no matter how hard they tried due to the sheer volume. In EQ2, however, you actually see each server's guild of token 12-hours a day'ers sat waiting for the spawn on the next contested they have timed.</p><p>I'm not saying in the current design that the guilds killing them don't deserve to; they put in the hours and they get the rewards for it. But I can totally understand why contesteds could be viewed as wasted development time. I perhaps feel this time would be better spent in creating high end raid content based around long access quests and very hard instanced encounters which would be accessible by all players.</p>

[Wildmage]

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>The problem is that with contesteds working the way they do, they are invariably monopolised by one guild per server, meaning about ~300 people gamewide actually use the content. That's a terrible ratio of development time / usage; particularly when you consider the time invested in the graphics, encounter design, and loot design of something like the EoF Avatars. I'm sure this time could have been invested in creating an extra raid instance which would have been used by thousands, if not tens of thousands of players.</p><p>It's a simple fact with contested working the way they do, that they're not really "contested" at all, because everything is in favor of the guild that last killed them (they have better gear, they know roughly when the repop will be), and moreover there are seldom more than 24 people on a server willing to play the massive number of hours to catch them when they pop. It worked in EQ1 velious-era because <i>everything </i>was contested, so a guild couldn't monopolise the content no matter how hard they tried due to the sheer volume. In EQ2, however, you actually see each server's guild of token 12-hours a day'ers sat waiting for the spawn on the next contested they have timed.</p><p>I'm not saying in the current design that the guilds killing them don't deserve to; they put in the hours and they get the rewards for it. But I can totally understand why contesteds could be viewed as wasted development time. I perhaps feel this time would be better spent in creating high end raid content based around long access quests and very hard instanced encounters which would be accessible by all players.</p></blockquote> This also resulted in the infamous scheduling of raids where all the major guilds on a the server would set up a calendar and only guild X could raid say plane of Fear on this day then the next zone repop was reserved for another guild yadda yadda so if you wanted to even touch that content you had to join one these big raid guilds.

[Gungo]

One wonders if there was never contested in the first place in eq2 would anyone even care. I don't think contested adds anything in eq2 in most cases it is not even a contest.

[Freliant]

How's about this for an idea then: Having non-attackable NPCs that roam around the zone. They agro like normal mobs, but cannot be killed. They are there just for atmosphere. You wouldn't exactly get one shotted, but you would run away if it was gonna engage you. This would be good specially since there will be very limited heroic content in the contestted zones.

[KennyG]

OK so perhaps the idea of a 30 day lockout on contesteds was a bit harsh, but I really do feel they need to get much better with the randomizer for the repop on these guys.

[Rahatmattata]

<p>The reason only 1/10th% of players ever get a chance to kill a contested epic is because of the bad implementation. They spend all the time and resources making a unique contested epic mob, and then they thoughtlessly throw it in the game on a predictable spawn window and place. Add on top of this only 3 contested in a tier and well... yea 1 guild is gonna lock it down and anyone else can consider themselves lucky if they even ever see the mob. </p><p>T7 & 5 is sort of a good example of how contested could be. There are so many it's impossible for 1 guild to lock them down. A guild can lock down the eof contested, but they leave the KoS contested open, maybe because they no longer care about Hurricanus when they are killing avatars every week, whatever. We have Temple of Scale, Monoliths, the x2 for claymore, Matron, Hurricanus, MO, 3 Princes, PHH, Mayong, and an Avatar all contested epic content. Obviously the loot is far from comparable from all these mobs, but it is still impossible to lock down every one of these. Some of these I wouldn't even consider contested, but the fact is still: it's a contested mob (any mob not instanced or force popped is contested) and it's epic.</p><p>I think the main solution is to have a larger amount of contested, not neccisarily more random spawn times. TBH, the spawn window could range from 2 days to 20 days, and the same dedicated guilds are going to keep camping the mob until it pops no matter how long it takes. While other guilds won't have the desire/patience/care to sit there camping until it pops. So, the same guilds will still be killing the contested no matter how rediculously huge the spawn window. But, if you have 10 different mobs suddenly things get interesting and choices have to be made. Two or three mobs are up, which one do you kill? Because as soon as you pick one, another guild is gonna be off killing the other one.</p><p>Some mobs that spawn in unpredictable places might work too. Completly random spawn area in a given region, and/or in a place impossible to camp (too much roaming epic aggro, etc).</p><p>Another route to take might be to make all the contested with extremely narrow spawn windows. Say for example there is a mob that pops between 21 and 24 hours every time, in the same place. All your guild has to do is camp it one day, get a time of death and come back with a raid force the next day. You have multiple raids knowing the mob is going to spawn within this 3 hour window, so you have mutliple raids at the spawn, actively camping, ready to go. Unfortunatly the lag of 3+ raids camping a mob would be almost game breaking.</p><p>One last idea, I would love an end-all extremely rare ubah contested on a rediculos respawn timer. Sort of like the mythical boss of the game only a few very lucky top end players of the game will ever see. With a 3+ month respawn in a shared zone that requires a lengthy and difficult series of access quests. Other games have this and I love the concept. FFXI for example has a contested mob called Absolute Virtue. It spawns in a region called Sea and you have to complete many quests/missions to even get access to this zone. It's been over a year since the zones were released, and I think only 1 raid has killed this mob to date. I guess I just like the idea of an ultra tough rare mob, virtually impossible to kill. Some might argue EQ2 already has this with Nagafen, but #1 he's instanced, #2 there's no guarentee if you somehow managed to kill him you would get any unique loot.</p><p>Anyway, I hope there are new contested in RoK, and feel if they made even more of them they would actually become a true contest to kill and not just piniatas for 1 guild on the server to pwn every week. One idea I heard that I liked was to have 5 contested epics, and put the avatars on seperate spawn timers according to alignment. So, all evil avatars on the same spawn timer, all good avatars on the same spawn timer, and all neutral avatars on the same spawn timer. This could theoretically end up with 3 avatars and 5 other contested up all at once, making it impossible for 1 guild to kill them all unless noone else on the server is even trying.</p>

[Talz]

The only people on my server that will be upset are the ones that act like delinquents if someone else dares to try something that they boast owning.  No tears shed here for contested going bye-bye.

[KennyG]

<cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>The only people on my server that will be upset are the ones that act like delinquents if someone else dares to try something that they boast owning.  No tears shed here for contested going bye-bye. </blockquote>They aren't going bye bye.  They are adding 3 more avatars (they have already committed to that)  They are just saying you won't see as many mobs like the Pumpkin headed horseman just floating around randomly waiting for some guild to lock him down.

[daray]

<cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm not saying in the current design that the guilds killing them don't deserve to; they put in the hours and they get the rewards for it. But I can totally understand why contesteds could be viewed as wasted development time. I perhaps feel this time would be better spent in creating high end raid content based around long access quests and very hard instanced encounters which would be accessible by all players.</p></blockquote> Technically all players have equal access to contested raid mobs - it is just those that are better organised/disciplined, are prepared to put the time in, and better players are the ones that will get the kills, and the rewards from the kills. When a contested encounter spawns, everyone at that point has equal opportunity on that mob. Just because the vast majority aren't willing or capable to put the effort in needed to learn the encounter and kill it, does not mean it is wasted developer time. Not every server has a dominant guild, and this can be seen by the amount of time it has taken many servers to get their server-first kills on current EoF contested content, and some servers are still not even killing the contested encounters with any form of regularity. So saying that contested content is only accessible to less than 1% of the playerbase, really only translates into less than 1% of the playerbase actually having the skill, coordination and desire to defeat these encounters. The rest clearly lack the capability and skill needed, and stick to the much easier instances, while completely opting out of contesteds. Another point that many are so quick to overlook is that contested content provides a great focal point for many people, and for the content as a whole. It inspires competition and interaction on a server at a level that can't be matched or beaten by anything else. Perhaps you are stuck on a server where there is only one capable guild and you aren't in it ... but personally, on my server, there are 4 guilds that can and do show up to the various contesteds, and the race/competition over the contested can make for a very enjoyable evening. Even if many people arent capable of killing contested content, it gives the masses something to aspire to. And to those that do kill contested content, it gives them a unique experience, and unique loot. Instances tend to be a much easier and simplistic form of raiding. Combined with the new persistent zones/ lockouts, it is really only a matter of time before the masses can defeat the content. There is no sense of urgency to instanced raiding, and it is often rather stale. EoF instanced content is easily beaten by the masses, and there is no real sense of accomplishment in doing it. It is just a farm-fest for loot that everyone else has - the mobs just trip over and drop a fabled chest. Is this what people want by "accessible"? If instanced content was raised to the difficulty of contested content (but just in an instance), then, again, you would only have less than 1% of the playerbase defeating it, and being able to progress further into the instance. Does this make it a waste of developer time again? The points raised in this thread would imply "yes". In short, the reason much content is not "accessible" to all, is because the majority are incapable of killing it, and not because they don't get the opportunity to kill it. This is just an easy way of justifying lack of ability. And this is in an expansion where none of the content is even remotely a challenge for the people that know what they are doing.

[Talz]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>TuinalOfTheNexus wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'm not saying in the current design that the guilds killing them don't deserve to; they put in the hours and they get the rewards for it. But I can totally understand why contesteds could be viewed as wasted development time. I perhaps feel this time would be better spent in creating high end raid content based around long access quests and very hard instanced encounters which would be accessible by all players.</p></blockquote> Technically all players have equal access to contested raid mobs - it is just those that are better organised/disciplined, are prepared to put the time in, and better players are the ones that will get the kills, and the rewards from the kills. When a contested encounter spawns, everyone at that point has equal opportunity on that mob. Just because the vast majority aren't willing or capable to put the effort in needed to learn the encounter and kill it, does not mean it is wasted developer time. Not every server has a dominant guild, and this can be seen by the amount of time it has taken many servers to get their server-first kills on current EoF contested content, and some servers are still not even killing the contested encounters with any form of regularity. So saying that contested content is only accessible to less than 1% of the playerbase, really only translates into less than 1% of the playerbase actually having the skill, coordination and desire to defeat these encounters. The rest clearly lack the capability and skill needed, and stick to the much easier instances, while completely opting out of contesteds. Another point that many are so quick to overlook is that contested content provides a great focal point for many people, and for the content as a whole. It inspires competition and interaction on a server at a level that can't be matched or beaten by anything else. Perhaps you are stuck on a server where there is only one capable guild and you aren't in it ... but personally, on my server, there are 4 guilds that can and do show up to the various contesteds, and the race/competition over the contested can make for a very enjoyable evening. Even if many people arent capable of killing contested content, it gives the masses something to aspire to. And to those that do kill contested content, it gives them a unique experience, and unique loot. Instances tend to be a much easier and simplistic form of raiding. Combined with the new persistent zones/ lockouts, it is really only a matter of time before the masses can defeat the content. There is no sense of urgency to instanced raiding, and it is often rather stale. EoF instanced content is easily beaten by the masses, and there is no real sense of accomplishment in doing it. It is just a farm-fest for loot that everyone else has - the mobs just trip over and drop a fabled chest. Is this what people want by "accessible"? If instanced content was raised to the difficulty of contested content (but just in an instance), then, again, you would only have less than 1% of the playerbase defeating it, and being able to progress further into the instance. Does this make it a waste of developer time again? The points raised in this thread would imply "yes". In short, the reason much content is not "accessible" to all, is because the majority are incapable of killing it, and not because they don't get the opportunity to kill it. This is just an easy way of justifying lack of ability. And this is in an expansion where none of the content is even remotely a challenge for the people that know what they are doing. </blockquote>That's somewhat of an ivory tower perspective. I hate to burst your huddled masses gathering to hear tales of the avatar slayers bubble but contested in EQ2 is a fluff area of the game.  The players you speak of aspire to kill things like Tarinax before they're obsolete. There are guilds out there that handle contested disputes with class and maturity.  You and I both know that for every one of them there are multiple guilds that convince people that the sad basement dwelling raider stereotype is true. If this was EQ1 where it was possible to do more with less because of skill then I would agree with some of what you said.  I remember seeing some small guilds pull off things during Velious that really impressed me and I am not easily impressed.  Especially in a video game.  EQ2 is much easier though and I feel that I should enlighten you about the masses.  I led hundreds of raids on contested from original era where I killed the god, slew the dragon and saved the princess.  The players that always impressed me were the ones that were never beating endgame content but always working towards it without overwhelming force and making progress. EQ2 works different though and unfortunately I don't see that happen much.  People usually can either do something or they can't until they read about when to use a paper when an encounter uses a rock.  The time/skill prerequisite balance that EQ1 had is gone.  Time is the prerequisite for nearly everything in EQ2.  Skill plays an important part but it isn't more important than time.  Time is what separates players in EQ2, not skill. You can disagree with that but I have been fortunate to play with a lot of successful people in MMO's.  Every Friday I catch up on emails and some are people from EQ2.  I replied to three people today from EQ2.  A student at Penn, his brother that's a neurologist and a ranger that leads his squad in Afghanistan.  The brothers don't raid because they don't have time and the ranger should be self explanatory but when he did play he pretty much always crafted.  Those are the masses that won't do contested.  Are you honestly going to tell me that players in guilds where the average player spends way too much time on a video game know more about effort and ability than they do? My intent isn't to be mean or snobby but you have 498 days played.  That's what separates you from the masses.  Let the masses log that time and you may never see a contested again.

[daray]

<cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>My intent isn't to be mean or snobby but you have 498 days played.  That's what separates you from the masses.  Let the masses log that time and you may never see a contested again. </blockquote> Lol, just because I leave EQ2 running on one of my several computers all day, whether I am playing or not, has basically no real bearing on the points i made. If leaving my computer online seperates me from the masses, then so be it =P Anyways, back on topic ... <cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hate to burst your huddled masses gathering to hear tales of the avatar slayers bubble but contested in EQ2 is a fluff area of the game.  The players you speak of aspire to kill things like Tarinax before they're obsolete. </blockquote>What real difference then, is there between developing contested content that this "majority" of people won't see, or developing hard instanced content that these people won't see? Both could be called a waste of dev time. <cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>EQ2 works different though and unfortunately I don't see that happen much.  People usually can either do something or they can't until they read about when to use a paper when an encounter uses a rock.  The time/skill prerequisite balance that EQ1 had is gone.  Time is the prerequisite for nearly everything in EQ2.  Skill plays an important part but it isn't more important than time.  Time is what separates players in EQ2, not skill. </blockquote>Actually, you would be surprised at how many still can't kill something, even when handed the complete strat. A sound strat wont kill a mob for you. Executing the strat will, as well as having the slightest idea of what you are doing. Unlike EQ1, you can't rely on sheer numbers to kill something. You are limited to 24, and each one of those 24 have to pull their weight. If skill played no part in raiding, then why do the guilds who spend the largest amount of time on a weekly basis raiding, make the least progress, and struggle on the easiest of raid content? And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you have the hardcore raiding element, who raid for maybe 1-2 hours on a nightly basis, and clear every instance and contested every week in that time. Granted there isn't much skill needed to play this game, but many people still repeatedly fall short. I am very much against changing raiding to cater to the lowest common denominator. I am not against having a spread of raid content to cater to various ability levels, as long as the rewards are tiered in quality to match, and there is content that will be somewhat challenging to the top-end raiders - and the best way to do this is with the inclusion of contested content in addition to truely challenging instanced content. That is how you can please all the raiders in this game. There needs to be a true sense of raid progression in this game. And yes, my view does come from a "hardcore raiding" perspective, if you can call "getting stuff done" that. Very few people from the top-end raiding community use these forums anymore with the "alternative unmoderated forums" available to them. However, with all the comments from the casual player base here, I felt i should add some differing opinions so the debate isnt so one-sided.

[Tae]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote>If skill played no part in raiding, then why do the guilds who spend the largest amount of time on a weekly basis raiding, make the least progress, and struggle on the easiest of raid content? </blockquote>The changes made to heroics and other similar things suggest that this game is being geared to more casual players. Mobs that, even if they have very nice areas leading to them, are only ever going to be killed by hardcore players and aren't even going to be <i>seen</i> by anyone else are a waste of time that could be spent making mobs that everyone gets to see.

[daray]

Taear@Venekor wrote: <blockquote>The changes made to heroics and other similar things suggest that this game is being geared to more casual players. Mobs that, even if they have very nice areas leading to them, are only ever going to be killed by hardcore players and aren't even going to be <i>seen</i> by anyone else are a waste of time that could be spent making mobs that everyone gets to see. </blockquote>Actually, quite a large proportion of the player base engages in some form of raiding, even if they aren't terribly successful at it. Eliminating raid content completely would be a very bad move =P Raid content acts as something for many to do when you level cap, and gives the game longevity.

[Oakum]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote>Taear@Venekor wrote: <blockquote>The changes made to heroics and other similar things suggest that this game is being geared to more casual players. Mobs that, even if they have very nice areas leading to them, are only ever going to be killed by hardcore players and aren't even going to be <i>seen</i> by anyone else are a waste of time that could be spent making mobs that everyone gets to see. </blockquote>Actually, quite a large proportion of the player base engages in some form of raiding, even if they aren't terribly successful at it. Eliminating raid content completely would be a very bad move =P Raid content acts as something for many to do when you level cap, and gives the game longevity. </blockquote><p>They are not getting rid of raid content, nor should they. The contested raid mobs is what they said they are not going to put a lot of time in making new ones other then Avatars.  I agree that contested are the least used content in the game and even if I was trying to do them, I would still have to admit that a month of making, testing, and changing a new contested mob that only a minute number of players would see is not good compared to making a quest or ring event or whatever that 90 percent of the players will do.</p><p>Even if the "hardcore" may never touch it because they go straight to the dungeons to grind to lvl 80 and start raiding the new raid zones a lot more people would use the other content. </p><p>They also said that the avatars would still be the toughest raid mobs in the game which makes me believe that they are going to upgrade the current Avatars. With them and 4 others making 13 contested, I would say that would be fine for the number of contested. I do not remember any dev post countering that statement by a poster but I may have missed it or they may not have bothered.  </p>

[Tae]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote>Actually, quite a large proportion of the player base engages in some form of raiding, even if they aren't terribly successful at it. Eliminating raid content completely would be a very bad move =P Raid content acts as something for many to do when you level cap, and gives the game longevity. </blockquote>Uh, what? I mean contested. I thought that was pretty obvious. Earlier in the thread people mentioned crafting the area in which a wandering epic spawns into a place that looks like the epic would really live there. Therefore, having a nice place leading up to it. But if said Epic is never there, what's the point? If the majority of the playerbase is never going to see it, putting it there is a waste of developer time. As an example I have seen Ladon in the Commonlands once. Even on Darathar which was extremely low population he'd be killed almost as soon as he spawned. What's the point of him being there if only 6 people (since twinks can one group him) ever really get to see him?

[daray]

<cite>Oakum wrote:</cite><blockquote>They also said that the avatars would still be the toughest raid mobs in the game which makes me believe that they are going to upgrade the current Avatars. With them and 4 others making 13 contested, I would say that would be fine for the number of contested. I do not remember any dev post countering that statement by a poster but I may have missed it or they may not have bothered.  </blockquote> Yeah the avatars are being upgraded to T8. However, they are not counted as seperate contested since they are on a single timer, and just rotate. In fact here is an arguement you can make for the best use of "dev time": was it a productive use of time to code 12 seperate encounters, and then put it on the same timer with the same loot tables (and then a rare specific item on each), when you could have developed 12 seperate contested encounters, each on their own spawn cycle? With 12+ contested, it would be very hard for a single guild to lock them down, dont ya think?

[Leatherneck]

Then again, even one god on a planet they are supposed to have forsaken at a time is a lot.  potentially 12 is...well...over the top.

[Talz]

<cite>daray wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>My intent isn't to be mean or snobby but you have 498 days played.  That's what separates you from the masses.  Let the masses log that time and you may never see a contested again. </blockquote> Lol, just because I leave EQ2 running on one of my several computers all day, whether I am playing or not, has basically no real bearing on the points i made. If leaving my computer online seperates me from the masses, then so be it =P <span style="color: #00ff00">People can draw their own conclusions.  I think any three digit play time is absurd.  To each their own though.  I have no reason to doubt your integrity so will leave it at that.</span> Anyways, back on topic ... <cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>I hate to burst your huddled masses gathering to hear tales of the avatar slayers bubble but contested in EQ2 is a fluff area of the game.  The players you speak of aspire to kill things like Tarinax before they're obsolete. </blockquote>What real difference then, is there between developing contested content that this "majority" of people won't see, or developing hard instanced content that these people won't see? Both could be called a waste of dev time. <span style="color: #00ff00">Because they will see it and have a chance to work through it.  If every single aspect of the original Tarinax was the same but he spawned in Bonemire every three days or so there would have been hordes of people that had the ability to kill him and did kill him that would never have seen him.</span> <cite>Talzar wrote:</cite><blockquote>EQ2 works different though and unfortunately I don't see that happen much.  People usually can either do something or they can't until they read about when to use a paper when an encounter uses a rock.  The time/skill prerequisite balance that EQ1 had is gone.  Time is the prerequisite for nearly everything in EQ2.  Skill plays an important part but it isn't more important than time.  Time is what separates players in EQ2, not skill. </blockquote>Actually, you would be surprised at how many still can't kill something, even when handed the complete strat. A sound strat wont kill a mob for you. Executing the strat will, as well as having the slightest idea of what you are doing. Unlike EQ1, you can't rely on sheer numbers to kill something. You are limited to 24, and each one of those 24 have to pull their weight. If skill played no part in raiding, then why do the guilds who spend the largest amount of time on a weekly basis raiding, make the least progress, and struggle on the easiest of raid content? And then, at the other end of the spectrum, you have the hardcore raiding element, who raid for maybe 1-2 hours on a nightly basis, and clear every instance and contested every week in that time. Granted there isn't much skill needed to play this game, but many people still repeatedly fall short. I am very much against changing raiding to cater to the lowest common denominator. I am not against having a spread of raid content to cater to various ability levels, as long as the rewards are tiered in quality to match, and there is content that will be somewhat challenging to the top-end raiders - and the best way to do this is with the inclusion of contested content in addition to truely challenging instanced content. That is how you can please all the raiders in this game. There needs to be a true sense of raid progression in this game. And yes, my view does come from a "hardcore raiding" perspective, if you can call "getting stuff done" that. Very few people from the top-end raiding community use these forums anymore with the "alternative unmoderated forums" available to them. However, with all the comments from the casual player base here, I felt i should add some differing opinions so the debate isnt so one-sided. <span style="color: #00ff00">I never said contested content didn't require skill.  I said that it required time first and foremost.  I also didn't base a single point from the perspective of the lowest common denominator.  I fully understand why contested content exists and what it takes to partake in it.  What I don't think you understand or want to see is that the lowest common denominator of the contested player base is the reason for developers seeing it as a waste of time. If your guild conducts yourselves appropriately then I am sorry that you may lose an aspect of the game that you enjoy.  However, you need to put the blame where it's deserved.  Contested content brings out absolutely ridiculous behavior by juvenile standards in a game with many adult subscribers.  You can't please everyone.  It's a stupid way to run a business and I am sure that somewhere a principles of marketing instructor is cringing because his new students think otherwise.  Another MMIS or EH is a lot better for the game than another horseman.  In other games that might not the case but here it is.  I don't like to see people have their content taken away from them but it's kind of like being asked to leave the club because of something someone sitting with you did. Believe me, I fully understand wanting to say something when obnoxious people from one side figure out how to turn on their computer and start doing what they do best.  I don't think that you're a bad person but I think you have a very narrow view on this.     </span> </blockquote>