In praise of instances

Goldfolk

Goldfolk

Dalayan Elder
I don't know if the server could actually support instances but as I believe they are possible with the new client I would urge you to consider implementing them.

At the moment it isn't as big an issue as in the past but the competition for some targets such as the Vah Quests and T9+ did at times get quite nasty and the current set up favours those who have no lives.

It's no coincidence that some of the most successful players in the game have ultra addictive personality types and I'm not talking just about the game.

The main advantage of instances is that it enables guilds to do the mobs they want when they want (subject to lockout times) and not be disadvantaged because Guild A is on Euro time or Guild B is on EST while yours is on PST etcetera.

It also enables people with jobs and real lives to get their quests done and not have the mobs constantly sniped by the 4th alts of people with no jobs or lives.

I am not suggesting that everything in game is instanced just the more competitive raids and maybe some very very popular mobs.

While I understand the ethos of this game is to encourage competition, it can go to far and will discourage some mainstream users.

Anyway just a suggestion.
 
A few select instances every 2-3 tiers to alleviate bottlenecking and give guilds a reliable backup plan would do wonders for improving the playability of this game for normal players (as opposed to "the 4th alts of people with no jobs or lives"). Nothing says "why the fuck am I playing this game" quite like logging in for a raid then it being cancelled half an hour later because nothing is up, probably all roflstomped by the beforementioned nolifers.

You could even throw some lore into it like "Dreadfang Spires is ever shifting, ever changing" or "Halls of Misery is another dream" or "Prizon of Azymrra/Thaz exists outside of time".
 
donfolstar3 said:
A few select instances every 2-3 tiers to alleviate bottlenecking and give guilds a reliable backup plan would do wonders for improving the playability of this game for normal players (as opposed to "the 4th alts of people with no jobs or lives"). Nothing says "why the fuck am I playing this game" quite like logging in for a raid then it being cancelled half an hour later because nothing is up, probably all roflstomped by the beforementioned nolifers.
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Does this even happen nowadays. Whenever we want to raid things these days it's always sitting up for days before we do it.
 
Zapple said:
Does this even happen nowadays. Whenever we want to raid things these days it's always sitting up for days before we do it.
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If by nowadays you mean as recent as a few months ago then yes. The sentiment you express is not unique among seasoned players but here are some reasons why it maybe isn't the bestest for the server:

"whenever we":
We being, I am guessing, experienced high end players who have many many tiers to choose from instead of the few lowend player have.
It is simple numbers.
If, for example, you have a dozen apple trees and someone comes in and picks one bare and a few off the rest you still have a lot of apples, but if you have three apple trees and someone comes in and picks one bare and a few off the rest you have, what people in agribusiness call, not many apples.

"these days":
Judging from other posts the population is really low right now, even worse than this summer which was damn bad. That means less competition for raids.
Assuming for a second that SoD2.5/3 happens and increases population, that would mean increased competition which leads to those no-raid raid nights which knocks the population back down. It is a vicious cycle. The game cannot easily build up an endgame raiding community without some kind of competition relief.
Tmaps kind of fill this role but dmap drops sucksbutt, vds are pretty good, and EDs are crazy expensive/rare as well as a huge gap above VDs.

"always sitting up":
Hyperbole

"for days":
Again, hyperbole.
More importantly, if someone wanted to play this game but only commit to raiding 1-3 night a week then those "days" could be meaningless.
Suppose for a moment that Bob really likes SoD but can only raid M, Tu, & W night (maybe he is weird and has a job and family, weirdo). If those targets are up "for days" starting on Thursday then get downed on Sunday night or Monday morning then "for days" doesn't really mean anything to Bob. Now I suppose you could tell Bob to "go fuck himself" and "this game takes commitment" but that seems like a counterintuitive move for a game with dwindling population and a [target audience is not the right term here, but close enough] that is, hopefully, losing hardcore gamers to the scourges of getting older in the form of "career", "adult responsibilities", and "raise your damn kids".

Full disclosure:
I too might be guilty of a bit of hyperbole here. The thing is that I really want to like Shards of Dalaya. Honestly few things in the online gaming world would please me more than Shards of Dalaya experiencing a revival, but that simply is not going to happen by doing the same old thing or wasting untold hours making newbie quests that few people will do once then utterly forget. People on these forums give new games a lot of shit for being dumbed down form-over-function and terrible and they have many valid points, but ... well... let me give it to you in Star Trek:
Star Trek the Motion Picture was classic (like EQ Classic/SoD). It was also boring as shit. Now the new films are fun and exciting but they are also incredibly stupid brain farts that are barely even Star Trek. Something happy middle something, just watch the Wrath of Khan or Search for Spock... I kind of lost the narrative there, sorry.
 
It isn't even hyperbole. Our guild raids 2-3 days a week and anytime we want to do Spires, Turruj, most of Sanctum, and other stuff around that tier it's just there and has likely been sitting up for 2-5 days at that. As a rule I think you'll find established guilds don't really dip too far below their tier., and for us things like Spires are on the low end of what we'll do. We even have to clear some stuff we don't even need or really want. Maybe there's more competition and a more "vibrant" low end game these days, I don't know. I don't do that content because I've been past it for a pretty long time.

You seem to think that raiding in this game is some kind of massive time investment thing only for hardcores but it isn't. The tome exp/charm grind on the other hand is pretty bad but that's non-raid content with a less of a competition metagame going on.
 
Zapple said:
It isn't even hyperbole. Our guild raids 2-3 days a week and anytime we want to do Spires, Turruj, most of Sanctum, and other stuff around that tier it's just there and has likely been sitting up for 2-5 days at that. As a rule I think you'll find established guilds don't really dip too far below their tier., and for us things like Spires are on the low end of what we'll do. We even have to clear some stuff we don't even need or really want. Maybe there's more competition and a more "vibrant" low end game these days, I don't know. I don't do that content because I've been past it for a pretty long time.

You seem to think that raiding in this game is some kind of massive time investment thing only for hardcores but it isn't. The tome exp/charm grind on the other hand is pretty bad but that's non-raid content with a less of a competition metagame going on.
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Yes cause SB havent raided for a month so therefor you have no competition around tier 11-13.

But tier 7-10 is really crowded.

Abyss would be a good zone to make as a instance.
 
The other area that is constantly congested is Emberflow.

7 day instances there would allow those with less time and commitment to actually cut their teeth on 6 man.
 
What happens when we get on eqemu's login server or our population spikes above 300-400 on a weekday? It is a pain to try and catch any 6man and 6man is fun even if your not after loot the last few years its been pretty congested as is add another 3 or 4 guilds competing for that content! Instancing of all the main quest zones + prison and maybe something like ToT per guild bases, and most of the 6man content.

Have both instanced and contested zones, In the instanced zone you'd get the normal 2 drops normal plat normal xp, and in the contested you'd get a bonus for participating in competition, Extra loot chance more plat more xp! This would keep casual guilds alive while still giving instinctive to all the hardcore people! It would speed up progression While keeping both sides happy, and to top it all off it would better enable SoD to support a bigger population then one or two guild per two tiers.

Edit: I'd also give some thought to making the lockout/respawn/reset in instances a little bit longer than is standard now, a little more push toward encouraging competition.
 
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If 2.5 gets people to play again then there will be nights where guilds of all tier ranges (not counting T 12-13) will have little to nothing to do. When I was coming up through the tiers there was at least 1-3 raid nights per month where raids were canceled due to there not being targets up worth killing.

Granted back then the server had 450 people peak hours and those were tiers 5-10 (it was more of a common problem T 7-10)
 
Zapple said:
You seem to think that raiding in this game is some kind of massive time investment thing only for hardcores but it isn't. The tome exp/charm grind on the other hand is pretty bad but that's non-raid content with a less of a competition metagame going on.
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Since you were so kind as to tell me what I seem to think can I point out that if you were speaking exclusively about T10+ then your initial response makes zero sense considering my post was T1-9 references? It seems to me like your posts are thinly veiled bragging and, more importantly, at odds with all other posts in this thread. I would ask you to come down to our level and try to remember back to a pretty long time ago when you were not past this, but that seems beneath you.

The raid game certainly is a big time investment. Not on the scale of xp grind, which is just boredom or epeenery after a point, but still a considerable. With an average 2-3 nights a week over the span of a year you could instead play dozens and dozens and dozens (and maybe another dozen or two depending on game type) of other games through. You could also read some books or be an awesome parent/sibling/friend or learn something, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. There are rewards and the social aspect and all that to make raids appealing, but all of that gets thrown right out the damn window when there are no targets up and no backup option come raid night.

Draeos said:
Have both instanced and contested zones, In the instanced zone you'd get the normal 2 drops normal plat normal xp, and in the contested you'd get a bonus for participating in competition, Extra loot chance more plat more xp! This would keep casual guilds alive while still giving instinctive to all the hardcore people! It would speed up progression While keeping both sides happy, and to top it all off it would better enable SoD to support a bigger population then one or two guild per two tiers.
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Yes. Exactly this. Many thumbs.
 
Zapple said:
Does this even happen nowadays. Whenever we want to raid things these days it's always sitting up for days before we do it.
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We've had to cancel a few of our off night raids b/c of this. We aim for tier 7 or 8 stuff usually for these.

Our main raids have never been canceled, but for at least the last month or so we haven't had a choice of targets, we have been forced to go to one mob or zone because that's all that is up. We aren't into spires yet, Sanctum is almost always down because y'all still have to clear through it for some reason, and most Thaz wings are seemingly perma-down at this point.

I had mostly chalked this up to ordinary competition, but if it could be alleviated I certainly wouldn't complain.
 
we've been asking for a port past the start of sanctum for a while now with nothing as of yet. I'm actually glad this is happening to you so they see its not just us talking shit and that its beneficial to anyone who wants to try it.
 
This works really well on live, raid ( usually 3-5 days ) / group stuff ( 12-24 hours ) has lockouts. Lockout hits everyone in group/raid so you cant just have someone else request instance.
 
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