EQ TLP - Oakwynd (Evolving Ruleset Progression Server)

xmod2

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I am really not sure WHAT they are trying to fix. There are just so many problems that the cure is many times worse than the disease.

Take AE PL. If they are worried about stopping powerleveling, then they have to make it as painful to the powerlevelers as possible. Most paid PL is done when the person being boosted is AFK. It also requires the ability to CC / tank mobs with a higher level team outside of the group that is getting XP without them stealing the kill.

FTE on the surface seems to fix that. The puller is going to get all the aggro and lock the encounter. The people outside of the group cannot assist in stunning the mobs, so the group that pulled the mobs are forced to fully kill the mobs. Except doing that breaks the ability for someone running asps into EC tunnel to get helped by a friendly higher level. So they have to add encounter breaking which means the player can initiate the ending of the encounter lock by /yelling. Well, they could continue to screw over PLers by making broken encounters award 0 xp or loot, but then it leads to people purposefully poofing quest mobs and all kinds of other stupid behavior, so they KEEP the loot and switch it to traditional DPS race after the encounter is broken.

So as a PLer, now you just have to /y to break the encounter and then EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME. If you have to /y on each mob it will be annoying, but not annoying enough to stop professionals. It WILL stop regular people who have a high level druid friend and want to get started on the server, because they just won't have the setup to mass /y. If they add EQ2 style "break all" /y when you target yourself or nothing, then it literally has no effect on PLers at all.

In the case of KSing, this is now solely done through DPS races. Again, this screws over 'normal' people while leaving the 'professionals' unscathed. If you are a kronofarmer sitting at Efreeti with a pack of necros, you will also just have a wiz box to macro target and tflux the rares. In the past a full group at least had a chance of pushing them out, but now you could have a raid and you won't have any luck. In the case you are up against a non-professional, now instead of a single player requiring the dps to do 51% against an entire group, a fucking warrior can come up and tag your mob and then slowly just kill it for 30 minutes in front of your group and there is nothing you can do about it.

For trains, the mobs will NOT leash back to spawn before becoming unlocked according to the faq. This means that unintentional trains of someone running past you may not cause proximity aggro, but it DOES mean that A) the train returning to their spawn WILL add on your group anyway and B) intentional training works as it always did. Monk flops, mobs blink for a few seconds and then become active.

In every single case FTE doesn't solve the problem that it appears to be created to solve, and in every single case it opens up bigger problems that didn't exist before. My only possible way to understand it (other than DBG having not thought of this for more than 1 second) is that they have some other, unknown to the community, reason for the change.
 
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YttriumF

The Karenist Karen
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I think they looked at the population lifecycles of recent TLP and live servers and asked the following:

1. Is there anything we can do from a design or technical perspective where we can
a. Extend peak population level an additional 30 days? (measurable)
b. Increase the steady state population level at least 10%. (also measurable)

The FTE solution was probably driven by reviewing CSR tickets and community council feedback. Tricky, because players are notorious lying liars of lying. I do not see them targeting PLer's directly, because the community demand for their services (right or wrong) is too great. No ... somebody got a sore ass because they did not get their Journeyman Boots or Mask of Deception in era.
 

Elderan

Blackwing Lair Raider
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I am really not sure WHAT they are trying to fix. There are just so many problems that the cure is many times worse than the disease.

Take AE PL. If they are worried about stopping powerleveling, then they have to make it as painful to the powerlevelers as possible. Most paid PL is done when the person being boosted is AFK. It also requires the ability to CC / tank mobs with a higher level team outside of the group that is getting XP without them stealing the kill.

FTE on the surface seems to fix that. The puller is going to get all the aggro and lock the encounter. The people outside of the group cannot assist in stunning the mobs, so the group that pulled the mobs are forced to fully kill the mobs. Except doing that breaks the ability for someone running asps into EC tunnel to get helped by a friendly higher level. So they have to add encounter breaking which means the player can initiate the ending of the encounter lock by /yelling. Well, they could continue to screw over PLers by making broken encounters award 0 xp or loot, but then it leads to people purposefully poofing quest mobs and all kinds of other stupid behavior, so they KEEP the loot and switch it to traditional DPS race after the encounter is broken.

So as a PLer, now you just have to /y to break the encounter and then EVERYTHING IS EXACTLY THE SAME. If you have to /y on each mob it will be annoying, but not annoying enough to stop professionals. It WILL stop regular people who have a high level druid friend and want to get started on the server, because they just won't have the setup to mass /y. If they add EQ2 style "break all" /y when you target yourself or nothing, then it literally has no effect on PLers at all.

In the case of KSing, this is now solely done through DPS races. Again, this screws over 'normal' people while leaving the 'professionals' unscathed. If you are a kronofarmer sitting at Efreeti with a pack of necros, you will also just have a wiz box to macro target and tflux the rares. In the past a full group at least had a chance of pushing them out, but now you could have a raid and you won't have any luck. In the case you are up against a non-professional, now instead of a single player requiring the dps to do 51% against an entire group, a fucking warrior can come up and tag your mob and then slowly just kill it for 30 minutes in front of your group and there is nothing you can do about it.

For trains, the mobs will NOT leash back to spawn before becoming unlocked according to the faq. This means that unintentional trains of someone running past you may not cause proximity aggro, but it DOES mean that A) the train returning to their spawn WILL add on your group anyway and B) intentional training works as it always did. Monk flops, mobs blink for a few seconds and then become active.

In every single case FTE doesn't solve the problem that it appears to be created to solve, and in every single case it opens up bigger problems that didn't exist before. My only possible way to understand it (other than DBG having not thought of this for more than 1 second) is that they have some other, unknown to the community, reason for the change.

I think alot will become more clear once fte is on test next week and we can see how it actually works vs how its been explained to the PR people.
 
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Tuco

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I am really not sure WHAT they are trying to fix. There are just so many problems that the cure is many times worse than the disease.
I think this is one case where they really should state their reasoning behind the change.
 
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Arbitrary

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I think this is one case where they really should state their reasoning behind the change.

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Which we then assume is tied to these issues hogging finite customer service resources. It just doesn't seem like enough from our end to justify a change this large and then exchanging all the old issues for brand new ones and doing that all right now on a TLP launch that is so far just one server with other rules people are not jazzed about.
 
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Secrets

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View attachment 469992

Which we then assume is tied to these issues hogging finite customer service resources. It just doesn't seem like enough from our end to justify a change this large and then exchanging all the old issues for brand new ones and doing that all right now on a TLP launch that is so far just one server with other rules people are not jazzed about.
I called it earlier in the thread. CSRs will simply ignore the issues now if reported. They have a mechanic based solution. CSR time gets to be spent elsewhere.

This is going to be great for Daybreak, but not great for the players.
 
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Arbitrary

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I called it earlier in the thread. CSRs will simply ignore the issues now if reported. They have a mechanic based solution. CSR time gets to be spent elsewhere.

This is going to be great for Daybreak, but not great for the players.

But couldn't you already just ignore KSing reports? I guess I could believe there's just a goddamn ocean of training petitions. Their SOP is to pop in and watch what's going on which just takes time no one wants to spend and then after five minutes you move on to the next and the next and the next? If they're trying to sell us on the labor savings more explanation would be handy.
 

Animosity

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Their CSR has been shit for years. And now it gets worse. Its been obvious they didnt want to monitor anything with TLPs. Remember when Phinny was suppose to 24/7 support. That lasted maybe a week.
 

Arbitrary

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Their CSR has been shit for years. And now it gets worse. Its been obvious they didnt want to monitor anything with TLPs. Remember when Phinny was suppose to 24/7 support. That lasted maybe a week.

Aradune I think was advertised with increased GM support including a box you had to click OK whenever you logged on. I saw some quick vacations handed out but in general I think it just encouraged people to be even bigger crybabies than usual.
 
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Zish

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They should just commit to seasonal servers. It's practically what their TLPs are anyway. Special ruleset servers that just end up dying and getting merged into live.

Make servers that have a specific end date with whatever new rules you wanna try, go through all the expansions (or hell even limit them), and then dump all the characters on a live server at the end and start over.
 
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Elderan

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They should just commit to seasonal servers. It's practically what their TLPs are anyway. Special ruleset servers that just end up dying and getting merged into live.

Make servers that have a specific end date with whatever new rules you wanna try, go through all the expansions (or hell even limit them), and then dump all the characters on a live server at the end and start over.

One of the main issues is they only do TLPs once a year. They should do one every 6 months. This way people dont put so much hope into a single yearly TLP. Also they need to always have a server in classic to pop era which is by far the most popular time frame.
 

Rajaah

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One of the main issues is they only do TLPs once a year. They should do one every 6 months. This way people dont put so much hope into a single yearly TLP. Also they need to always have a server in classic to pop era which is by far the most popular time frame.

Yeah I'd rather see a TLP every six months instead of two every 12 months. Just do the same thing only spaced differently. Wanted to play on Yelinak some, but it conflicted with others. Also, this way you'd get one in like mid-November which would be great for people going into the holiday season and spending more time indoors. As opposed to the current TLP dates being nowhere near as convenient.
 

yerm

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TLP every 6 months would probably be a terrible business decision

If they did the goofy experimental every other and the phinny clone every other it wouldn't feel much different, and the ardent classic recyclers would start fresh and buy bags twice as much.

They lose a pretty decent chunk of potential subs when they release two servers, a bunch of people would play either but have to pick just one, and then they quit in under a year and wait for the next tlp.
 
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Mahes

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Its clear the people running this do not understand what they are running well enough, to optimize the amount of money they could make off its player base. They are trying to milk this for as long as possible until either the "real" next great thing comes or we all die. I honestly think this thing is making money in other ways that are not obvious, so they do not really give a shit.
 

Tuco

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Seasonal servers like other games have are kinda hard because of the absolute massive amount of content from classic to live. I don't really know how you'd do it without cannibalizing each server or making the pace so fast that players spend inordinate amounts of time dealing with the changes.

From DPG's perspective, having a couple years of dud TLPs that explore novel ideas between really popular ones that utilize obvious attractions might not even be that bad, though their experiments are poorly conceived, implemented and/or supported.
 

Nemesis

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I dint get the reference, but I think you're suggesting that my ogre warrior was sex trafficked around Norrath
 
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