Bottlenecking Progress.

Who would be prevented? The mob doesnt incur a timer the ppeople that killed it do. And to say giving a fresh group the opportunity to kill a mob, that they realisticly currently dont have, is horrible logic. I may be misunderstanding you, please expand on your comment.

Edit: After re-reading I think you missed the part of a super increased spawn timer. Meaning many more chances to kill the mob.

Or maybe an alternate idea, still using super increased spawn timers, after killing mob x you can not engage it for x ammount of time. Going along with game rules, persons who dont contribute cant loot. But this might be prone to people looting without helping meaning it would require much more GM baby sitting so I still like the idea of a character based loot timer.
 
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Ever mob that spawns is in competion for who can kill it. It matters not hat tier you are or who you are friends with, that is part of the fun and trill of the game. It only gets worse as you progress and that is where the true bottlenecks come from.

Starting with your OP you havent really said what bottlenecks are bothering you or constructive way around them besides "qp's should not be on low tier mobs".

I understand you are frustrated that your friends quit, but I am 100% confident they did not quit because they could not kill 1 specific mob. Not many people are after the mobs that most high tiered people kill on a regular basis that is far below them, except people after the same things.

Bottlenecks suck, but that is part of the game, and what makes the end reqard worth it.
 
First - lock out timers are a bad idea. That just means there will be a rotation of people even more eager to kill something as soon as their lock out timer is over because you have just made it harder for them to get the item they want. Oh and also, this just introduces a bottleneck further down the line in progression - isn't that the thing you are saying is bad?

I understand you are frustrated that your friends quit, but I am 100% confident they did not quit because they could not kill 1 specific mob. Not many people are after the mobs that most high tiered people kill on a regular basis that is far below them, except people after the same things.

They likely did not quit because of 1 specific mob, but it is likely a group of mobs they needed/wanted to kill for progression were very difficult to find up, and they get sick of it.

Also the "it only gets worse as you go" argument is stupid. By that time you have more resources, and more support likely. You are competing with people who are similarly able to kill the thing you want to kill etc. Low tier players who need a full group, a full raid, whatever to kill a given mob can't compete with a player who logs on a track bot, notices something they want is there, and can do the clear and get the kill before the lower tier player has time to assemble his friends/guildmates/whatever. For a casual player, they do not always have 5 other RL people on SoD ready to help them kill stuff. If mobs only dropped loot that high end players didn't want it is unlikely that those mobs would be dead more often than alive, and so the casual player has a better shot of finding it up on a scheduled grouping/raiding night and having the ability to kill it.
 
No one is going to take this thread seriously unless you actually provide some thoughtful analysis (ie: actual mobs/tiers) on where severe bottlenecks exist. Of course, when you do this you will be flooded with responses of how there are dozens of other options at those tiers or for same slot upgrades etc. etc.

Just saiyan.
 
Also the "it only gets worse as you go" argument is stupid. By that time you have more resources, and more support likely. You are competing with people who are similarly able to kill the thing you want to kill etc. Low tier players who need a full group, a full raid, whatever to kill a given mob can't compete with a player who logs on a track bot, notices something they want is there, and can do the clear and get the kill before the lower tier player has time to assemble his friends/guildmates/whatever. For a casual player, they do not always have 5 other RL people on SoD ready to help them kill stuff. If mobs only dropped loot that high end players didn't want it is unlikely that those mobs would be dead more often than alive, and so the casual player has a better shot of finding it up on a scheduled grouping/raiding night and having the ability to kill it.

It is easier to get to and assemble and possibly kill but the amount of players after said mob dramatically increases. Thus the compition is greater and makes it even harder to kill because its just as easy for competition to track assemble and kill.
 
I think the main problem is just how easy it is for people to figure out the spawn timer. Maybe increase the variance so it is harder to predict when it will be up.

That said, the vah is not a quest for new 65s and casual dudes. It's not supposed to be easy and people shpuld stop expecting it to be.
 
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Who would be prevented? The mob doesnt incur a timer the ppeople that killed it do. And to say giving a fresh group the opportunity to kill a mob, that they realisticly currently dont have, is horrible logic. I may be misunderstanding you, please expand on your comment.

Edit: After re-reading I think you missed the part of a super increased spawn timer. Meaning many more chances to kill the mob.

Or maybe an alternate idea, still using super increased spawn timers, after killing mob x you can not engage it for x ammount of time. Going along with game rules, persons who dont contribute cant loot. But this might be prone to people looting without helping meaning it would require much more GM baby sitting so I still like the idea of a character based loot timer.

Unless this was limited to certain zones, the economy would suffer from the sudden glut of droppable items. Also, this kills pretty much all competition for mobs/loot. From the direction you are heading, we may as well start talking about instances.
 
Dookey, i do agree partially with you on the economy. People would be more inclined to get their items verses buying them. The timers would not apply toward cash loots just no drop stuff... farming cash/getting exp is part of the game i think everyone expects when they sign up to play an mmorpg, so I wouldnt see a need to place it there. If SOD had the capability for instances I think I would gothere, but it doesn't.

As far as the VAH comment goes, most of the people Im referring to aren't even trying to work on the Vah. They are T1-T4s still trying to figure out where mob x spawns because they dont have the downloaded maps, they dont have 10 different track bots, and they dont have buddies on call that have a duo combo that can wipe a zone at a moments notice.

As far as examples go, basically any 6 man mob in the T1-T4 range and any raid mob in the T1-T2 range is likely harvested for a single item while the rest of its loots rot and the people that need these loots are left SOL.
 
In the case of Cmal key mobs (and those like it in other zones) I do kind of agree that there might be a need for a * counterpart for the mob. NOT to drop the quest items or loot but just key (as is the case with the Emberflow key) so that newer players get a chance to move on in a zone with mobs that are highly contested (make the *version keydropper on 2 hour timer or something)
 
Sad Truth

I think the server population is decreasing because either people are finally moving on from EQ, or a lot of the reasons SoD emulated the 'EQ Feel' are gone. We all knew this was going to happen one day - we are complaining about issues more recent mmos have taken note of and 'fixed' - the result is everyone being uber instead. For the time being, I personally don't think there is a black and white fix for this issue. More content is the most obvious, or simply more quest options, but bare in mind this is for a server with a peak of like 300 (half of em boxes so like 150 lol) and limited staffing... so tbh, it's kind of a pipe dream.

For new players also, ive personally tried to get new people to play with me, but its extremely frustrating for noobs to try to get the hang of the game without being heavily scrutinized by people who invest 8+ hours a day into this game for being 'bad'. Instead of helpful suggestions, the common process is if someone doesn't know a specific tactic, mob strat or ability they're automatically criticized instead of any effort being given to help them learn otherwise. This discourages learning process and frustrates new people. The server reeks of this elitist attitude, and most new people now quit before they get their 1st aa because they're not neurotically fixated on SoD to the point of it consuming their entire lives...YET.

It also doesn't help that the game is 100% free... which always attracts a certain number of 'colorful' characters.

Also...as others have pointed out, some of the quests and tasks are just too much of a timesink. Yes you can always NOT do these, but lets be honest - thats the point of eq - get phats.

Many of the hardcore players will burn out from this timesink and quit or 'break' for awhile - and for new players, SoD is a hard sell as it is - more time required for less rewards, and far less to do than other online games. The charm was the more mature playerbase and the fun you had with those people - and the community for lack of a better word has become pretty douchy in the last little while.

Something for 'fun' sake I think would be neat is some form of PVP - not 100% serious, maybe just -some- incentive to bring some excitement in. I know classes are not 'balanced' in eq for this but it may give players something to do with their phats - perhaps make rewards illusion clickies or fun items - just throwin it out there.

All in all though, Everquest, be it Live or Shards or EQEmu, whatever form it is - it's a dinosaur. And we all play it because for a lot of us EQ was our first mmo experience, and we chase that feeling of progression, or we find another MMO hasn't given whatever 'feel' EQ has (Every week in ooc is a 'remember when' moment from Live, FFS!)

However, I think everything has its time in the sun, and maybe we should consider the fact that the sun has set on this dinosaur.
 
Even in games where the content is almost all instanced and there's no degree of competition between players to kill raid mobs, the "rarity" of really good things is still artificially enforced by laughably low droprates. See: World of Warcraft and certain quests/items i.e. legendary items.

Not that I like this or think it's "right" or anything but that is just how the MMO genre turned out aside from sandbox games like early Ultima Online.
 
For new players also, ive personally tried to get new people to play with me, but its extremely frustrating for noobs to try to get the hang of the game without being heavily scrutinized by people who invest 8+ hours a day into this game for being 'bad'. Instead of helpful suggestions, the common process is if someone doesn't know a specific tactic, mob strat or ability they're automatically criticized instead of any effort being given to help them learn otherwise. This discourages learning process and frustrates new people. The server reeks of this elitist attitude, and most new people now quit before they get their 1st aa because they're not neurotically fixated on SoD to the point of it consuming their entire lives...YET.

I think this is also a pretty fair assessment. And probably part of the reason the only people on these boards are high end folks - noobs get crapped on so why be active on the boards, why even continue playing? Add that to the competition from people who should have no reason to compete with you, and the giant time sinks involved - I don't know why anyone would stay with this game at this point.
 
We all play for are own reasons if you are casual like me, it is to have fun with friends and slowly progress through whatever it is you are working on.
 
anyone should be able to do the vah quest in a weekend of casual play

Thank you for helping to prove the point that people just troll any post by newer/lower tier players. Also thank you for reading the thread and seeing there is a constructive conversation happening that says nothing about shortcuts through difficult quests, just talk about bottlenecks in certain quests trickling down to affect those who aren't working on anything near the same quests.
 
Ever mob that spawns is in competion for who can kill it. It matters not hat tier you are or who you are friends with, that is part of the fun and trill of the game. It only gets worse as you progress and that is where the true bottlenecks come from.

Starting with your OP you havent really said what bottlenecks are bothering you or constructive way around them besides "qp's should not be on low tier mobs".

I understand you are frustrated that your friends quit, but I am 100% confident they did not quit because they could not kill 1 specific mob. Not many people are after the mobs that most high tiered people kill on a regular basis that is far below them, except people after the same things.

Bottlenecks suck, but that is part of the game, and what makes the end reqard worth it.

It definitely matters what tier you are and who you are friends with. The cliques don't and won't take strangers. they will fomelo you and make an assumption based on that. Neither skill or personality will convince someone to take along a person even if they are a good player. It isn't as easy as "just ask someone for help"
 
It isn't as easy as "just ask someone for help"

Often, it is.

They wont let a random come and take the items they want, but in the case of people doing highend quests and killing low content, most people are happy to let a nub come antirot some phats or lowbie quest item.
 
Often, it is.

They wont let a random come and take the items they want, but in the case of people doing highend quests and killing low content, most people are happy to let a nub come antirot some phats or lowbie quest item.

The other day the top guild killed two tier five monsters. A lower tiered player asked to come for quest drops that were rotting. Said lowered tiered player ported himself up and got said quest drops. All it took was asking. Sometimes it is that easy.
 
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