Should contested Epics even be bothered with? - Page 15

Muraha · 12-05-2007, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arieste

yes and right now that's not the case.

What I'm talking about is this:

Take something that takes "skill". For the sake of argument, let's say doing 100k dps as a raid sustained over 2 minutes is a skill.

I'm not saying it's most important or only skill, but let's take it as an example. Doing 100k dps as a raid over 2 minutes requires 2 minutes. Not less and not more. There is some organisation time, etc.

Now, let's make this skill a part of a contest. Put a big "contest box" or whatever you want to call it at the Freeport arena. At any given point, a group of people can come out and try for how much DPS they can do in 2 minutes. They can only try once a week. Their dps score is noted.

At the end of the week, the group that got the highest score gets "Key1" to a contested mob which gives them access to a mob for 30 minutes. Keys 2 and 3 are also handed out, everyone else is SOL. So if the WINNER of the CONTEST doesn't kill the mob in 30 minutes, 2nd place people get their 30 minutes, etc.

Once the keys are used or mob i dead, contest starts again.

Now take every skill in the game and add it to this contest, put in DPS, put in coordination, put in heals, put in whatever you want. Anything but "logging in at a certain time" and "logging in for a certain period of time".

If you are the best there is, you will still dominate. But on any given week, if someone else can show more SKILL, nothing stops them.

All the mentioned things are still here: test of skill, losing your chance if you aren't fast enough, etc. (honestly, you can make every key be 1 pull if you want.)

That's basically the kind of contested I'd like to see.

What a load of complete dribble and complete crap! I now feel dumber having read it. Drop this futile discussion and realise you are way out numbered.

arieste · 12-05-2007, 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaige

That is the same thing as instancing them and it removes the point of them being contested.

Besides, being able to do a lot of DPS has nothing to do with raiding effectively, its only one facet.

I'm curious, what exactly is your guild's excuse for losing out on contested that spawn during your playtime window?

No excuse, we never bothered with them.

I'm unguilded currently. Back when i was in a raiding guild, we raided from 10-4pm EST saturday and sunday. As EoF started, this was barely enough time for us to do all the instances. If a contested happened to spawn during those playtimes, it would mean leaving the instance and missing out for the week. Given that we were still being challenged and progressing through the instanced stuff, it wasn't worth it to go out and *maybe* get a chance to pull a mob a couple of times before strike shows up and kills it.

Also, the guild was frankly not very good at the start of EoF, so by the time we got to the skill level where we COULD probably figure out and kill a contested, the said contested were all dying within 15 minutes of spawn to another guild that had had much more time to work on them (not to mention that this was an established hardcore guild that didn't have to "get better")

We never complained about not doing contested, we simply didn't do them.

I can see "contested" being out in the open on PvP servers where you have to kill other people in order to get to them. There is an actual competition there - or at least potential for it. Restricting who can kill the mob to "who showed up" or "who has the most phone numbers" or "who got lucky" has nothing to do with the skill to kill the mob.

I'm not talking about nerfing the mobs or anything. Hell, you can make every mob in the game be 1 pull / week if you want.

As long as ALL that the encounter takes is SKILL.

p.s. yes i agree DPS is not everything, it was just an example, but anything else can also be tested... how about having an avatar instanced and the guild that kills it in least pulls gets the loot? Is that not competition? Or kills it fastest? Or by taking least damage? or with least amount of players?

also, keep in mind, i view things from my own crappy little server. i see all this big talk about hardcore guilds loving the competition, but all i've seen is hardcore guilds moving to our server so they don't have to deal with any.

aduros · 12-05-2007, 04:34 PM

When a contested spawns it should send out an ingame mail to every guild on the server. The letter would read something like:

"Dear Player, I have spawned and am currently awaiting your arrival at (-564, 29, 350) in Nektulos Forest. I would also like to let you know that I am carrying Robe of Resplendant Battle, and Bauble of the Chime. I have a posion damage shield, and will AE your raid every 30 and 50 seconds with a noxious DoT. Please make sure to have your healers cure this DoT, and warn your MT about my memblur. Also I'm scripted to 1shot any scout or mage that stays within an 8 meter raidius of me, when I shout 'FEAR THE PAIN, FOR THE PAIN COMMETH AND KNOWS NO MERCY!!'. It would sadden me deeply if I was responsible for wiping your raid. Please proceed with caution, and happy hunting.

Sincerely yours,
Avatar of Unending Pain"

Upon arrival to said coordinates, when your raid is ready to pull, you dash torwards the avatar...then hail him and get sent to your own instance. Each instance will be on its own dedicated server, so you won't experience any lag, or guilds being mean and pulling before its 'their turn'. In fact you will experience no pressure at all, and are free to pull at your own leisure, even sit and wait for other members to log on if needed.

This is the only way to make contested truly exciting and fair for everyone.

arieste · 12-05-2007, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aduros

When a contested spawns it should send out an ingame mail to every guild on the server. The letter would read something like:

"Dear Player, I have spawned and am currently awaiting your arrival at (-564, 29, 350) in Nektulos Forest. I would also like to let you know that I am carrying Robe of Resplendant Battle, and Bauble of the Chime. I have a posion damage shield, and will AE your raid every 30 and 50 seconds with a noxious DoT. Please make sure to have your healers cure this DoT, and warn your MT about my memblur. Also I'm scripted to 1shot any scout or mage that stays within an 8 meter raidius of me, when I shout 'FEAR THE PAIN, FOR THE PAIN COMMETH AND KNOWS NO MERCY!!'. It would sadden me deeply if I was responsible for wiping your raid. Please proceed with caution, and happy hunting.

Sincerely yours,
Avatar of Unending Pain"

Upon arrival to said coordinates, when your raid is ready to pull, you dash torwards the avatar...then hail him and get sent to your own instance. Each instance will be on its own dedicated server, so you won't experience any lag, or guilds being mean and pulling before its 'their turn'. In fact you will experience no pressure at all, and are free to pull at your own leisure, even sit and wait for other members to log on if needed.

This is the only way to make contested truly exciting and fair for everyone.

you want to be stupid about it, be stupid. I have't seen one good argument other than PvP for why contested should stay out in the open.

You say you like the pressure of knowing that someone else will take it if you don't?

Well, if the group with the least amount of pulls wins, then you have the same pressure. Actually the pressure is higher because now there are a lot more groups trying.

You say you like other guilds watching and sending you hate tells while you're pulling to mess with your psyche?

Ok, well, we can make a little audience chamber.

You say you like that you have to deal with lag?

Well, you're an idiot, sorry. "Lag as challenge" is an SOE invention i do not support. But hey, we can probably get you some extra lag with that audience chamber.

Angelys · 12-05-2007, 04:51 PM

This thread makes me want to murder the first dev to implement an instance in a MMO. (who was it BTW??)

Ok just exagerating a bit but because of it now people think they're entitled to everything in a game where no one is supposed to have everything. MMOs really have reached a critical point today.

People want to play them as if they were playing a single or diablo-like game where you only share the world with a few people. They fail to see they are not playing the right kind of game. If everything is instanced, why calling it a MMO? If they don't want direct competition, why are they playing a MMO where they're supposed to play with hundreds or thousands of players that will most likely end up being on their way at one point or another?

The less contested raid mobs, the easier it will be for a guild to give the impression of locking them down, and the more the casuals (not all of them of course) will whine about contested being useless and a waste of dev time, and the dev will listen and design even less contested mobs, and so on and so on.

If there was tons of contested stuff with a fast enough respawn, and no instancing, everything would work out perfectly too because no one could kill everything, not even 3 guilds, not even 5+ organized guilds. And in a game where a raid or a player can be tagged I don't see how you can't script just like in an instance. The quests are proving it.

Why is it so important to the people saying it's just a game anyway. Just have fun the way you chose to play, no playstyle should give you everything, and none are giving you everything. Just enjoy what you can get and don't look at others.

sadre · 12-05-2007, 04:57 PM

Contested content has been an issue since eq1. It was, imo, both a great feature and a PITA. In one notable example, in eq1, on my server (quellious) Rallos Zek was the "cockblocked" mob for a month or so, with one guild blocking progression for the next two guilds toward plane of time uberness.

Well, one has to get inventive at that point. We zerged it with another guild, guaranteeing a one-attempt kill, and we had over 200 people get the flag ;P (This was the reason SOE then limited the number of flags one could get, btw).

My point is this. Contested NEED to be in game, but there ALSO needs to be a mechanism by which top guilds can be unseated from keeping servers in (booooring) lockdowns.

I am not sure if we have fully explored how to unseat top guilds. Is it bad game design, or have we not properly exploited our available tools to unseat them?

But one thing I would want to say: a locked down server is a boring server, and it IS a problem. A guild who has things on lockdown (and I have been there on permafrost) is quite dull, and the life of the server suffers imo.

sadre
unguilded because I just ain't right
oasis

Angelys · 12-05-2007, 05:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arieste

yes and right now that's not the case.

What I'm talking about is this:

Take something that takes "skill". For the sake of argument, let's say doing 100k dps as a raid sustained over 2 minutes is a skill.

I'm not saying it's most important or only skill, but let's take it as an example. Doing 100k dps as a raid over 2 minutes requires 2 minutes. Not less and not more. There is some organisation time, etc.

Now, let's make this skill a part of a contest. Put a big "contest box" or whatever you want to call it at the Freeport arena. At any given point, a group of people can come out and try for how much DPS they can do in 2 minutes. They can only try once a week. Their dps score is noted.

At the end of the week, the group that got the highest score gets "Key1" to a contested mob which gives them access to a mob for 30 minutes. Keys 2 and 3 are also handed out, everyone else is SOL. So if the WINNER of the CONTEST doesn't kill the mob in 30 minutes, 2nd place people get their 30 minutes, etc.

Once the keys are used or mob i dead, contest starts again.

Now take every skill in the game and add it to this contest, put in DPS, put in coordination, put in heals, put in whatever you want. Anything but "logging in at a certain time" and "logging in for a certain period of time".

If you are the best there is, you will still dominate. But on any given week, if someone else can show more SKILL, nothing stops them.

All the mentioned things are still here: test of skill, losing your chance if you aren't fast enough, etc. (honestly, you can make every key be 1 pull if you want.)

That's basically the kind of contested I'd like to see.

Bad idea, because the more a guild would win, the better they will be with their new stuff, and then people would complain that they can't compete against fully stuffed guilds. =)
And that would mean the guilds that are created months later with new great unstuffed players, wouldn't have a single chance while they would in a normal contested race.
Also, and most importantly, you would lose the best part of a contested mob: the adrenaline.

arieste · 12-05-2007, 05:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angelys

If they don't want direct competition, why are they playing a MMO where they're supposed to play with hundreds or thousands of players that will most likely end up being on their way at one point or another?

If they DO want direct competition, why aren't all the "hardcore" guilds on PvP servers?

For that matter, why aren't they all congregated on the SAME server in order to create the ultimate competition orgy?

Why do they move to lesser populated servers in order to avoid the competition?

If you CAN win by being a better player, why would choose this system where instead you win by showing up first?

Gage · 12-05-2007, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arieste

If a contested happened to spawn during those playtimes, it would mean leaving the instance and missing out for the week.

Given that we were still being challenged and progressing through the instanced stuff, it wasn't worth it to go out and *maybe* get a chance to pull a mob a couple of times before strike shows up and kills it.

Also, the guild was frankly not very good at the start of EoF, so by the time we got to the skill level where we COULD probably figure out and kill a contested, the said contested were all dying within 15 minutes of spawn to another guild that had had much more time to work on them (not to mention that this was an established hardcore guild that didn't have to "get better")

We never complained about not doing contested, we simply didn't do them.

Finally, the truth.

1) Your guild valued instanced raids and loot over contested. You didn't feel a contested was "worth" leaving the instance.

2) You felt you weren't good enough. You were defeated by Strike and they didn't even have to do anything. You didn't even want to try the mob because your defeatist attitude had you and your guild already knowing you'd lose.

3) You never tried. You felt like you weren't good enough. By the time you were good enough, you deemed it too late so you gave up.

Now explain to me, how any of those have to do with playtime?

They DO NOT. But those are the real reasons guilds don't get contested. They don't try. They don't think they can. They're scared. They don't feel they're worth it.

Playtime my ass, you guys are fucking scared and you feel subpar... through no fault of anyone but yourselves.

Angelys · 12-05-2007, 05:04 PM

Everyone repeat it with me,

NO ONE CAN LOCK DOWN A MOB, NO ONE CAN LOCK DOWN A MOB, IT IS NOT TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE, IT IS NOT TECHNICALLY POSSIBLE.

You want it? Come get it!