Tag: raid

The Reese`s Effect

Gaming

“You got your chocolate in my peanut butter!” “You got your peanut butter in my chocolate!”

Sometimes when it comes to MMOs, that’s how I feel. Only instead of peanut butter and chocolate, its PvP and PvE or Raid and non-Raid. But so far, no one has yet come up with the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of MMOs, no one has found the right blend.

My most recent example is that I’ve quit playing in the Battlegrounds in World of Warcraft. I love the Battlegrounds. I think the idea of Capture the Flag, Control Points, and other typically FPS styles of play being integrated into RPG PvP elements is just awesome. And when the Battlegrounds released, you couldn’t keep me out of them. The problem is… I don’t raid. I really hate raiding. Spending an entire night following someone else’s raid guide to victory is just boring. If I had to do that, I’d cancel my account. Luckily, there is tons to do in WoW besides raiding, and for most of it, my lack of raiding has no effect… until the Battlegrounds. At first, it wasn’t bad. There were tons of people as ill equipped as me. A guy in full raid gear was a rare occurance. But its becoming alot more common, watching my damage spells become less and less effective, while my survival rate continues to plummet… all the fun of Battlegrounds has slipped away. If only there were a way to join a Battleground that was restricted, that you couldn’t enter if you had on you (equipped or in bags) more than 3 pieces of raid gear, and by raid gear I mean the stuff that takes more than a group (I think I’d be willing to let the 10 man instance gear in).

Of course, any game that has ever introduced PvP has had the eventual colliding of PvP and PvE… some skill is overpowered in PvP so they nerf it and send the PvE players into a tizzy. Or some skill gets added or fixed for PvE and it “cripples” some class for PvP. Most times it seems like the developers need to make two distinct and separate games to sort it all out.

Anyway… no lofty design stuff here, just an acknowledgement that it exists and a realization that I, personally, would love it if the problem could be solved.

Alliance: I love it when a plan comes together

Gaming

So, this past weekend I decided to do a little PvP in the Battlegrounds. As usual, I dumped myself into all three BG queues and then headed off to mess around with low level quests I never did.

It took a while, but just as I was finishing up a handful of Darnassus newbie quests (Woohoo! 11 faction per turn in!), I got the call to enter Warsong. If you’ve read some of my ranting before, you’ll know that for the Alliance on Durotan Warsong Gulch runs last about as long as it takes for the Horde to run the flag three times. Non-stop. They just chain us, mostly because the entire Alliance side is out getting honorable kills, wasting time while me and maybe one other guy try to defend the flag. One shadow priest and one other random guy just often are not enough to fight off four or five Horde. We usually down a couple of them, but their shaman/druid/rogue will take off at high speed and that’s all she wrote. (By the way, being able to use speed forms or sprint while carrying the flag should be forbidden. It sucks that I start fighting a guy, he runs off with some speed boost, and I’m in combat so I can’t mount up and chase him. Blizzard, either remove the use of speed abilities while flag carrying, or remove the combat flag in BGs.) All I usually ask is that a hunter or two stay on defense and use their ice traps. I realize that druids switching forms can break free easy, but it help against everyone else.

Anyway… so I go in expecting it to suck. Only, it doesn’t. One guy starts shouting orders and, lo and behold, people listen. We win, 3-0. Yeah!! So, I re-enter the Warsong queue, and twice more I get in, and twice more we win. Awesome! Then I guess people stop joining, or perhaps too many people are in queue, so I head back to lowbie quest fulfillment. A short while later, an Arathi Basin call comes in. Whoosh…

So, Arathi Basin, like Warsong, seems to just suck for Alliance. And it doesn’t fail to disappoint in the first round. After asking to be invited to the raid a few times, I start inviting people. Most of them are in groups already, in the raid. I do invite three people to my group: two priests and a druid. All the healers in Arathi were not in groups. At this point some of the people start bitching about lack of healing, so I explain the situation. They start arguing that you don’t need to be grouped to heal. I explain about group heals, and the fact that Power Word: Shield can only be cast on group or raid members. All the other healers back me up, but some of the melees (rogues mostly) continue to say we don’t need to be grouped. I finally relent, “Hey, you’re right, we don’t NEED to be grouped, it just makes it about 10,000 times easier, especially since most of us have CTRaid_Assist installed and can easily target and heal anyone in range in the raid IF THERE WAS A RAID FORMED AND WE WERE ACTUALLY INVITED INTO IT.” Just then, the pop up for Warsong springs up on my screen. I click it and zip over to Warsong. I’m about to leave my group when I notice that they are all also in Warsong. We stick together and put down the most awesome 4 healer defense ever. Another Warsong victory.

After Warsong, I go back to the queues. Immediately Arathi Basin pops up. I’m hesitant, but I go in anyway. The good leader from the earlier Warsongs is in there. He gives commands, and people actually listen. Its a tough fight (I think the Horde side had more “raid level” players, because by far their outfits were sillier and they were really hard to kill), but we managed to eek out a victory by a mere 50 or so points (2000 to 1940/1950).

Finally, as I’m about to queue up again, the Alterac Valley gong sounds and I zip in quick. Normally I come into Alterac toward the end. All the towers are gone, and its the weakening dregs of an 8 hour zerg fest who remain emboldened by a few new players. But this was a new start. Immediately everyone rushed forward to try to take a new graveyard. The entire half-hour I was there, we fought at this location. We pushed up and down the hillside, getting so close to the flag at times. And then my computer locked up.

Ah well… maybe next time.

Alliance: Good doesn`t mean Nice

Gaming

Ishiro and Lorilai head to Winterspring to do battle with demons in the south because Ishiro needs some felcloth. Unfortunately, seeing as we have gotten all our gear doing quests and picking stuff up as we go, never in the auction house, we are poorly equiped to handle level 60 elites as a duo. So after getting our spirits crammed back into our bodies, we decide to do something else instead. Quests in Silithus.

Seems some of the guys there want us to kill more of those Twilight Hammer guys, so we are off to do that. Sadly, the pages they drop are a repeatable quest that people farm for faction to be able to complete other quests. First camp we hit, the one in the far southwest, a group of 60’s are pummelling everything in site. Second camp, just west of the town, also camped by a group of 60’s. Third camp, ah-ha! Only one rogue here. Of course the rogue spots a priest and runs up to me and says, “++”. I ignore him, assuming he doesn’t speak English. “zu” he says. “++”. He keeps running over, helping us kill stuff and repeating “zu” and “++”. Now, at this point I assume he wants something, but I have no idea what. Finally I say, “Sorry, I don’t understand you.” He stands silent a while and then says, “hp”. Hmm… I guess he wants a stamina buff. So I relent and give him one. He then proceeds to steal kills from us, and when he gets caster mobs with pets, he continually dumps the pets on us after he killed the casters. An interesting way to say “thank you”.

Lori and I are happily grinding away. We kill the 10 Geolords they wanted us to kill, and we are now collecting pages for the hermit. 77 kills in total and we got 7 pages. A 1 in 11 drop rate for an item that is also used in a repeatable quest that everyone and their brother appears to want to farm. Ugh. However, prior to the end of our evening, a raid force shows up. We are wondering what is going on, they are Alliance which means I can talk to them, so I ask. No reply. Ask a couple more people, ask in general channel. No answers. Without warning they trigger some god awful boss mob that blasts some area affect poison crap that nearly kills us. We scramble to survive our fight (3 mobs at once, that Keeper bitch keeps showing up at the most inopportune times), and then scramble to heal up. Then we get splattered again with the poison ooze and start healing and running.

After they kill the thing, I ask what it was, what it was for… no answers. I mention it would have been nice to give people a warning before spawning a boss like that… no reply. Then the raid group decides that with the boss dead, they all need faction and pages, so the 40 of them descend on our little camp and make everything dead. Nice.

So we pack it in for the night, still needed 3 more pages for Lori to complete the hermit’s quest. I really want to finish this crap so I can get away from Silithus. The place has been good to us, but there are just far too many wackjobs and assholes running around.

And then…

Gaming

Its a typical pattern, I find something cool in EQ, and then I’m reminded about all the stupid stuff.

Xegony was a fun, great fight… Lord Mithaniel Marr was just stupid. The hardest part was getting him into the corner… then with the tank standing the corner, LMM in front/on top of him, the rest of the raid stood at maximum melee range behind him and basically went AFK for the fight.

*sigh* I guess all wins can’t be glorious.

A Glimmer of Hope.

Gaming

Last night I was able to participate in a unique (in my experience) raid in EverQuest: Xegony in the Plane of Air.

Normal raids in EQ run a simple pattern. 1) Clear guards. 2) Set up, buff, etc. 3) Pull boss. 4) Tanks in front, complete heal chain, everyone else to the sides and back. 5) Pound on it until its dead.

The Xegony raid is different.

We set up beside some rocks on an island in the Plane of Air. The Main Tank, Secondary Tank and Third Tank, along with their complete heal chain compatriots, set up behind us. Xegony was pulled to there and the Tank set in. At 90% health, a wave of other spawns “woke up” and started to move toward her. The rest of the raid charged to meet them. We fought, a named spawn and 5 guards. Meanwhile, the Main Tank is “soloing” Xegony. Every 15% of her health, another wave would wake up, and we’d charge, north or south depending on the call, to meet and stop them. Xegony actually died while we were stilling fighting the last wave… the raid never fully engaged her.

It was a blast! Most raids are mind numbingly boring, turn attack on, mash a special attack key every now and then, with your biggest concern being if you are standing in the right place and making sure you aren’t stealling aggro from the tank. This was just so much more. It was a much needed breath of fresh air (pardon the pun) in EverQuest.

I think I’m ready to keep going now… and while my faith in SOE’s customer service and some of their design decisions (berserkers?? fu!) hasn’t been turned around, I’m at least happy to know that there might still be a few folks in there who actually understand what is fun in gaming.

Warriors: Shields as Weapons

Gaming

Sony has expressed an interest in more people using shields. Warriors have shown a proven deficiency in being able to control an encounter: their taunt and damage output is just not enough, and the result is that the rest of the players must manage themselves or actively shed agro in order for the warrior to tank, where the knights, paladins and shadow knights, have spells that are more effective at maintaining agro.

To that end I began thinking about shields being used by a warrior as a weapon, not simply as a shield. Don’t think sword and shield, slash and block, that knights do in movies and fairy tales. Instead, think Gladiator, smashing his opponent with his shield, slashing him with it, crushing him with it, distracting his opponent from his more deadly bladed weapon in the other hand, breaking his concentration. Offense, not defence.

Add a new weapon skill called “Shield” or “Offhand Bashing”. Then go through and add a weapon delay to shields for warriors only. The damage for the shield would be based off the armor class of it as the Bash skill currently does. And for each swing of a shield have it apply a hate increase value, how large or small would need to be tested and tweeked. You don’t want to make a warrior with a shield have absolute agro so that the rest of a raid can nuke and attack without care, nor do you want to make it so small that a warrior would choose weapons with procs on them over a shield all the time.

The key and the goal here is that by tying the new hate increase to a weapon type means that the warrior can selectively choose when to apply this. If he or she is the main tank for a raid, or even a single group, they would probably choose to wield a shield for the agro, but if they are one of eight or ten warriors on a raid they could use other weapon combinations to avoid the added agro of the shield and focus on damage. And of course, every warrior would keep a shield in their bags so that in the event of an emergency, main tank death, multiple adds, etc., they could pull it out to help gain agro faster.

And the Time Flies By…

Random Thoughts

And the page doesn’t get updated.

Some things have changed.

You’ll notice the Sages of the Primordium link is gone – the guild is dead. I don’t want it to be dead, but in the end it was a failed experiment. The experiment was: Can all my friends in EverQuest come together under a single name and play for fun? The result: No. Some people don’t want to co-operate. Some people get on other people’s nerves. Some people seek loot, fame, and fortune. Some people want to “win” EverQuest (The popular theory is that you win simply by going to all the high level zones and killing everything at least once). And all of these people cannot co-exist as a single unit. They can be friends for sure, but they must have two circles: one of friends, and one of like-minded achievers. They can actually hate all the like-minded achievers, but since those people are getting them what they desire outside of friendship they continue to associate with them. With the experiment failed, I headed back home to the Guardians of Order. We may not be uber in the world of Norrath, but we enjoy being there (Yes, there are people who are uber and also hate playing the game, why they still play baffles me).

There is another raid guide up – City of Mist. It will soon be joined by more guides once Jodi and I get around to gathering all the data and writing them up. All the raid guides are part of a little in-game project we are working on called nobody’s heroes. Another experiment, one that can’t fail because simply by my posting raid guides that we have created it has succeeded.

And as always… I’m looking for a new job and… buy my comics!

I fear Hate, but I hate Fear.

Random Thoughts

Last night I lead my first “break” of the zone known as the Plane of Fear in EverQuest. And now I understand the above quote from an old friend.

It refers to two alternate planes in EverQuest: Hate and Fear.

Hate is, by far, a cakewalk. You zone in to a spot that is somewhat safe and, most importantly, defendable. In the days before people thought up all the different strategies for Hate, they used to zone in, and huddle together waiting for something to notice you. Then if you survived the first onslaught, you started slowly bringing the rest of the zone to you in a somewhat orderly fashion. However, since the plane has existed for quite some time, people now zone in, run along the walls to a safer camp and pretty much do as they please. Its almost smooth as clockwork.

Fear, on the other hand, is a bitch. You don’t zone into a somewhat safe spot, you zone into a shitstorm. You don’t sit and wait for something to notice you, it hits you on the way in. Now, to offset this incredibly annoying way to be greeted into the zone, Verant did make it so any schmuck level 46 and above can just walk right in, whereas Hate requires a wizard to teleport groups up. Sadly, this doesn’t make things easier. Because if one member of your raid party forgets to go into Anonymous or Roleplay mode, which hides your location from others in player queries, the word will get out that a Fear raid is happening, and all the schmucks level 46 and up will start heading over.

After almost 4 hours last night we had managed only to kill one denizen of the Plane of Fear. One. About 20 of us had died, and in the end, a few of them lost their experience permanently since we didn’t get to their corpses in time to resurrect them.

I fear Hate, but I hate Fear.

Those are words to live by.

23 February 2001

Random Thoughts

The Devil’s Advocate
In this world, there lies a place for the devil and his advocate.
In my own life I have often played the part of the devil’s advocate in discussions. Sometimes it is done to point someone at a flaw that they do not see. Other times it is done just to force the person to show that they have actually thought of everything.
There are people who are good at being the devil’s advocate. They know when their job is done, or when they simply just aren’t getting through and further arguing is pointless.
Some, however, are not good at it. They turn simple flaw exposing into nay-saying. They extend the argument and drag it out if only to say “It’s not going to work. Can’t you see that?”, even when they no longer can show exactly why.
My patience for nay-sayers is thin.
I admit that sometimes I can be blinded when someone is telling me, and more importantly showing me where my ideas won’t work. But when someone who doesn’t know me at all, and has not bothered to speak to me about the issue goes out in public shouting at the top of his lungs that I am going to fail, it hurts. And when they refuse to listen to me and keep shouting that I will fail, not that I might fail but that failure is a forgone conclusion, I get angry. And as Dr. Banner said to Mr. McGee, “Don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
The specific case here is with EverQuest, game that I love. I am finally stepping up and leading a raid of one of the Alternate Planes, The Plane of Air (or Sky). I have spoken to a great many people about this zone, and of all the ways to do it. But in the end I decided that while I would keep their advice in mind, I wanted to actually try the zone from front to back and maybe incorporate a little winging it. See, the major thing is, Verant, the game designers, intended this zone to be done with a team of 24 people. this is evident by the fact that when you clear any part of the zone, you get 24 keys to the next part. Now, people have found ways around this, and it is how most people do their raids. I decided that the first rule of my raids would be to limit it to 24 people. One thing I did require was that I wanted 4 clerics, one for each group. Beyond that, I didn’t care who came, I would just build the groups as best I could and we would give it a wack.
One of the people who signed up then proceeded to tell me that we should cancel it, or kick people out and get other people (people who couldn’t be bothered to volunteer and sign up). I told him no, explained my goals with the raid and invited him not to come should he have problems with those goals.
At this point, I would have expected him to either shut up and come along, or shut up and walk away. Instead he continued to explain to me how I would fail if I didn’t listen to him, all the while neither saying if he was still coming, or leaving. He hinted with a “Maybe I won’t go” kind of line but didn’t say he wouldn’t go.
I’ll be the first to admit, my first responce to him was harsh, but only because instead of talking to me in private, he posted all of his doubts in public (I find this to be a cowardly tactic). But the continued nay-saying, insisting that we would fail pushed.
I hate losing my cool.
In the end, all I can say is that people play this game for many reasons. And there are hundreds of ways to achieve even very similar goals. I acknowledge that in others, and I take offence when they refuse to acknowledge that in me.
sigh
As for EQ in general. Comments from a good friend today coupled with some feelings of my own have lead me to a long awaited decision…
No, I’m not quitting. As long as its fun, I won’t quit. But the time has come to focus both my time inside EQ and without. I’ll pick a few days a week that will be EQ days, and everything else will be up for grabs.
I leave you with this… This Time of Year by Better Than Ezra.
Well, there’s a feeling in the air
Just like a Friday afternoon.
Yeah, you can go there if you want
Though it fades too soon.
So go on, let it be.
If there’s a feeling coming over me,
Seems like it’s always understood this time of year.
Well, I know there’s a reason to change.
Well, I know there’s a time for us.
You think about the good times
And you live with all the bad.
You can feel it in the air,
Feeling right this time of year.
Well, there’s a football in the air,
Across a leaf blown field.
Yeah, and there’s your first car on the road,
And the girl you’d steal.
So go on with yourself
If there’s a feeling that there’s something else.
Seems like it’s always understood
This time of year.
Well, I know there’s a reason to change.
Well, I know there’s a time for us.
You think about the good times
And you live with all the bad.
You can feel it in the air,
Feeling right this time of year.
Well, there’s a feeling in the air
Just like a Friday afternoon.
Yeah, you can go there if you want
Though it fades too soon.
So go on, let it be.
If there’s a feeling coming over me,
Seems like it’s always understood this time of year.
Well, I know there’s a reason to change.
Well, I know there’s a time for us.
You think about the good times
And you live with all the bad.
You can feel it in the air,
Feeling right this time of year.