The scheduled aspect is true, batphones just really don't work for some people. And I know some people who actually hate scheduled raiding, on the flipside. I'm not actually sure if someone who only raided our scheduled raids would hit the minimum RA threshold, I'd have to check. I know in Kunark they actually did, but we also raided a lot less in Kunark.
Everquest - Agnarr Server: Sunset Mode
- Thread starter Korrupt
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Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,213
- 893
From a very casual guy (FnF status) and spends a lot of time looking from the outside in, you should really consider Faceless. They're just a good group of guys and honestly, after helping a few other guild raids and comparing what it feels like listening to Faceless, you're going to spend less time per raid than anywhere else. They may raid a lot and that 20% may seem daunting (which it shouldn't and i've seen others that have 50%), you're going to get more bang for your buck in terms of gear, quality time with people, and targets. Being kind of a hired gun over Christmas break since I hit 60 on my Enchanter, it can be really miserable. Guilds can be so ineffective, inefficient, and simply spend time spinning their wheels and being frustrated which leads to a bad time. Now i'm not saying FE is the only guild in town that can effectively take down targets but if you're looking for a guild, take that into consideration, casual or not. This server has been different than any I have experienced in terms of people. They're some real knuckleheads and personalities on this server. One guild in particular comes to mind that i've assisted with lately made me think that I could never read their guild chat on a daily basis much less spend time in a Discord on a consistent basis. However, i'm from a teddy bear server (Lanys) and maybe i'm used to a different environment.
I've been debating for a bit what to do myself. Faceless is really one of the few options for a guy like me. If you're a seasoned vet and you want to get the job done there's very few choices in my opinion, especially if you've been in a raiding guild before and know how things work. Time just always works against me.... job, family, etc. and you hate to make a commitment that you know you can't keep. I saw all of this to just say, in the last 2-3 weeks i've gotten to know probably 5 or so guilds that raid and I would creep on forums, reddits, etc. before making a decision. Maybe i'm just getting old and grouchy....
Almost every single person in our raid force has a Vulak item/Tunare/Aow item(s) Since we don't do open world stuff unless we see it up (and we check) we don't have the 20% RA's since most of our members raid often.
I think the lowest people in the guild raid one night a week for 3 hours and even now they are getting high end items.
Since we are loot council and we don't have any crazy loot nutsos in the guild we basically are on "make people happy mode" we decked out our tanks and clerics early and now we just make sure that everyone gets high end items.
Outside of Faceless Empire I think we have the best geared average raid members. A 20% raider in FE is 80 mobs a month(Current 30 day is 400 events) . A 20% raider in Pitfall(TDC) is less than an hour a week.
The 20% minimum requirement in FE is more raiding than any other guild on the server.
Foaming
Lord Nagafen Raider
- 403
- 311
We constantly compare our clearing speed to other guilds. We do not mess around. However, our tempo and quantity of raids is not for everyone.
I work a lot of hours on an alternating schedule that would never work in a scheduled instance guild. Faceless has allowed me to maintain a 60%+ RA since classic.
I work a lot of hours on an alternating schedule that would never work in a scheduled instance guild. Faceless has allowed me to maintain a 60%+ RA since classic.
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Yes, that is the biggest draw to Faceless imo. The ability to have a good RA with out a set schedule.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
- 3,213
- 893
That's why I haven't applied out of FnF. You have to respect the way they do things. It works and they get results. I also have to be realistic and recognize that my schedule simply is not conducive to their raiding method. However, I've enjoyed being a fly on the wall more so than dealing with some of the other guilds. It doesn't bother me at this point but when PoP opens it's going to be problem. I really enjoyed going through PoP. I'm going to either apply to FE or figure something out.
SorrowsEnd
Trakanon Raider
- 1,455
- 763
As long as I'm not muted in discord and can crack jokes as needed I'm good to go. Or sing from time to time.
20% RA really isn't bad in the slightest. Faceless needed some form of minimum attendance. As it was the old system was way too easy to abuse for the RMT crowd.
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SorrowsEnd
Trakanon Raider
- 1,455
- 763
I agree that moderated voice chat is needed when you have 30+ people.
I must not be silenced though. I'm amazing and know when to be quiet during boss fights unless it is important. =)
I must not be silenced though. I'm amazing and know when to be quiet during boss fights unless it is important. =)
The 20% minimum being more raiding than any other guild on the server isn't the same thing as it being more time invested. I was honestly a little curious about this myself, mainly because we don't award DKP based on hours mostly, we give time based ticks for PoG and "wave based" ticks for Ring Wars (3 ticks, 1st Major wave, 2nd Major wave, 3rd) but everything else is kill based. So for that reason it isn't actually super easy to tell what 20% RA looks like in terms of hours/week, and because of variable raid clear times depending on target it's actually possible for two different people to have 20% RA but raid different numbers of hours.
What I did do was look at the week of 12/6 to 12/12. In that time we had 48 attendance ticks in NToV, 4 Dozekar, 11 PoG, 7 Fear, 13 AoW Cycle (includes Vindi since he's in the way), 5 KTs, 5 Dains, 2 Yelinaks, 5 Sleepers Tomb, 3 Ring War.
I had to make some rough guesstimates on time involved (and for PoG we give an "on time", 1st hour, "clear finished", and Tunare tick--we had 11 b/c one raid we forgot to give on time tick.)
Anyway 103 attendance ticks, ~21 to hit 20% RA. You could get that with 1 NToV (15 ticks), 1 AoW cycle (3 ticks), 2 KTs and a Dain for example. That would come out to about:
1 NToV = 3.5hr
1 AoW cycle = 45m
2 KT = 30m (15m/per)
1 Dain = 30m
Trying to be as fair as possible with respect to time investment my estimates factor in travel/setup time for a typical FE member, i.e. time from batphone to mob dead.
So for about 5h15m/week you could hit 20% RA.
Obviously the huge thing is the scheduled vs un-scheduled nature. NToV we reward a lot of attendance for, so if you miss a bunch of NToV batphones because you're busy irl it gets much harder to scrounge together the attendance you need. Making the scheduled instances will help. I totally get where the people who are coming from who stick to the instance-only guilds, honestly if I ever do another EQ TLP and I'd say odds are very low I do (they'd have to do some unique ruleset and it would have to either not start in Classic or would have to have a very brief Classic/Kunark which are both horrible to do as many times as I've done them) I'd stick to an instance only guild, but everyone's RL vs gaming situation is different.
We're moderated a lot of the time, probably 3/4ths of our raids. To be honest I think the moderation/un-moderation of Discord is/has been a source of strife. A lot of people "quietly" dislike moderated comms, i.e. there's people in the guild who don't like it but they aren't running to officers to cry about it so it creates the illusion no one minds, then there are usually a few people who openly complain about moderated comms. We also have a lot of people who during our unmoderated raids complain constantly about un-moderated comms and we have people that refuse to listen to comms at all because they say it's too annoying. Unfortunately in these big EQ guilds you just have to find a way to try to appease everyone which is never easy.
Our comms situation kinda makes me miss WoW to be honest, as much as EQ is portrayed as some hardcore more serious player base game by a lot of old EQers (especially the ones who never played WoW), in my experience top end EQers pay way less attention, spew far more nonsense in voice, and are in general just way less disciplined than hardcore WoW players, and I think that's probably why (in addition to the bigger raids), unmoderated comms in EQ guilds get so out of hand.
The main difference is we raid with 70+ people and wow guilds raid with like 10-20. It's a lot easier the manage.
We had some pushback in the beginning but we have people who would do bong rips, Kermit the frog impressions, babble on, tell stupid stories during classic and we just couldnt handle it.
Now I think people enjoy it or at least tolerate it.
The monks tanks officers and raid leaders are all unmuted. Basically if you want to say something it's easy for me to unmute you for a bit.
alavaz
Trakanon Raider
- 2,001
- 713
Voice comms in EQ have always been the worst. The trick is to either just get your whisper groups set up proper or if you're in a guild that rocks TS/Vent/non-discord then rock a discord on the side.
I also agree about the discipline. I almost get irritated at people who try too hard in EQ when there are like 50+ fuckers raiding a target that would easily flop to 10. Which is a slippery slope because then I start getting nonchalant when you get in a situation where you actually need to pay attention.
I have decided though that after this last (short) go around on Agnarr, that the absolute most fun for me personally in EQ is smaller groups or raids (with the right people). It definitely provides the best action to annoyance ratio.
I also agree about the discipline. I almost get irritated at people who try too hard in EQ when there are like 50+ fuckers raiding a target that would easily flop to 10. Which is a slippery slope because then I start getting nonchalant when you get in a situation where you actually need to pay attention.
I have decided though that after this last (short) go around on Agnarr, that the absolute most fun for me personally in EQ is smaller groups or raids (with the right people). It definitely provides the best action to annoyance ratio.
We just had a big blow up over that, We had some really fucked up people who thought it was like competitive esports and not a tourist server of a 20 year old game.
Eventually they always burn out or rage quit and the trick is to limit the damage they do.
We have a really good core of people now that we have weeded away people and we pride ourselves on being a fun guild to be in that also destroys content.
I like my little streamer guild. We had some rough patches but it's been the same people since day one classic, no mergers or exoduses and we've seen almost every other guild implode or die or drastically slim down since classic.
SorrowsEnd
Trakanon Raider
- 1,455
- 763
Final late night grind session to 50 with Hannah, Vash, Itzal, Short (until he passed out and ran off to die), and the others who were cycled through the hours was some of the most enjoyment I've had on Agnarr.
Single groups and small raids really bring out the charm of this game. The large raids have their place as well. Nice to have both.
Single groups and small raids really bring out the charm of this game. The large raids have their place as well. Nice to have both.
Got ya beat.
One of our best pullers raids at a hobby shop so when ever he says anything you hear 50 nerds in the background screaming about slaying orcs or countering spells.
Before the starwars movie came out they had the imperial March on loop in the store basically and it would blast it every time he spoke.
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One of the officers in my WoW guild was the 40-something year old son of a woman up in Canada who ran a large parrot sanctuary, and their house was like on the adjacent property. They always had some of the parrots in their house and anytime he keyed up on Vent you'd hear squaaaawk squaaawk as loud as can be through comms--literally every single time he spoke, for 4+ years. No idea how that dude hadn't lost his sanity.