The Problem(?) of PUGs

**edit** removed this, this was not really a solution to address the root problem.
 
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Shouki said:
A programmable solution would seem much better to implement as it wouldn't require constant supervision by staff. Which seems to drive towards a more rigid flagging/keying structure for "progression" content. You don't have a key/flag you can't enter the zone or engage a mob as happens with adepts.

You could make the keys/flags more or less easy to obtain depending on how much/little you want to restrict access. That is you might be able to receive a flag for killing a specific raid boss or maybe you make some flags happen from killing any raid boss in a zone (to reduce some instances of ****blocking).

Maybe implement alternative flagging NPC's to reduce back flagging pressures where appropriate. Something like if 12/18 people in a raid can "attack" or otherwise trigger the NPC and theyy are in same guild the remaining unflagged/keyed players get the flag/key. Make abuse of this system bannable.

Sorry, I've never raided past T9 so I can't offer more specific target suggestions nor sure what is definitely programmable in SoD. I understand this solution requires programming changes up front, but hopefully in the end it reduces long term staff need to monitor.
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From what I can tell, this change was made to reduce complexity and make the rules for flags more easy to enforce/less gray. I don't see how what you're proposing helps that. Then again, I'm not sure anyone knows entirely why this change was made, the jury is still out it seems.
 
Ya, I lost sight of the original idea of the thread. To revisit:

Slaariel said:
I THINK THERE SHOULD BE CONTENT AVAILABLE TO HIGH LEVEL AND COHESIVE GUILDS AS ORGANIZATIONS RATHER THAN COLLECTIONS OF MERCENARIES.

So what do we do about this? I liked the idea of zones that tie heavily into world lore being guild stuff. Meanwhile, zones that may have rich interior lore without ties to big storylines like the Seekers vs. Kaezul and so forth (aka MINOR lores) be free for all.
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I don't have any problem with this although I would ask why limit this to only "high level" targets and not through all tiers to allow same for lower tiered guilds? I'm not a lore monster nor have I done Yclist, Spires, Turruj as listed in the OP to know why those are more lore related than some other zones.
 
Yclist, Spires and Tur'ruj keying is part of the main quest line. Planar zones are fairly plentiful, relatively uncontested and have quest lines that require drops from bosses, including diety quests.

Taking City of Mercy as an example: Gradalsh (twice!), Althuna, SK Vah which I've pugged for myself and friends. These weren't really raids, and is no way complete to the # quests which converge on that zone. But with no pug rules, these would have to be guild events, which would blow for guild officers.

Also, the planar zone's tier has loot options outside of the zones themselves in the form of Tmaps, and ikisith drops. Just that the replacement is more from a stats perspective as the focii tend to be the more generic ones.
 
Brand new players

I rolled my character on Aug 1st, hit 65 mid September and pugged a few times since. The guild i joined, because i got tired of DB's does not raid, but i really like the people. So I pug when I see something <tier 8. I survived on 2 thaz kills, but i'm mostly pugging to try and get my relics, which don't drop there. So i wasn't going to go back for a long time. The only thing I have died on is Astatine because of the AE.

Having things that are tied to raiding. (relics, ancients, arachaic's) etc forces people to raid. Can't hate on pugs, when there is content only available to people who raid. So 18 people get together and try to raid.

An alternative to limiting guild vs raidtargets is to provide alternatives to what you can only get from raids. You want people to exp in off the beaten places(exp change) put a small chance of things dropping in them(previously only tied to raids) and people will go there.

Ex. A 1/500 chance of relics dropping in nadox, maybe people will go there more often.

I think having skills/spells tied to only people who can raid and then hating on pugs for hurting guild progression is counter-intuitive.

Character name is Aati.
 
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eqjenius said:
I guess my point is, it's better to find MORE ways for players to interact positively rather than to limit positive player interaction, which is what the removal of Thaz/new pug rules seem to do.
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This.

The amount of staff time/effort spent trying to find new ways to make the game more restrictive for the average player is... unfortunate.
 
Part of what I really dislike about any regulations on PuGs is the loss of player interaction.

I don't know about most people, but the majority of my t9ish guild do not group outside the guild very often for numerous reasons. Without PuGs in our tier range and not much grouping, the only interaction we have with other on-tier guilds is sometimes angry frustration at having a raid mob sniped and self-congratulations for taking something out from under their noses. PuGs at least gave us some opportunity to interact with others positively to accomplish something, rather than negatively.

I feel that there is also another segment of Pugger (that I fall into or perhaps have just recently left) being unnecessarily punished by these changes, that of a player dedicated to progression. Being a main in a raiding guild is obviously the best way to advance your toon, but on-tier PuGs gave those of us with more time than sense the ability to get gear/keys/spells to assist our own guild's advancement.

As to the original question, guilds already provide the biggest bang for your buck as far as rewarding cohesiveness through progression. By spending your time to get the same group of players gear/xp, rather than a random subset you may never see again, you increase the amount of content available to your own guild. I would argue that this is a sufficient reward for guilds, rather than mandating content exclusively screened off for their use.

Further, the argument that MQ/lore related zones should be the ones chosen to be screened off seems to falter in the face of CoD, ValB, and Abyss being on the list. I can *kind* of see how Prison works here as it is essentially the largest portion of gated content in the game, but I wonder if the real intention here was merely to deny access to everything after the t8 stuff and all the rest is just a smokescreen to make intentions slightly less obvious.

As a final thing to point out, I would note that Tao stated in my still yet to be trashcanned "Purpose of the 2/3rds Rule" post that:

"We'll handle it from here, and if any chances happen (which there is no assurance will happen), there won't be room for discussion/bitching afterwards."

And here we have a post made by a staff member requesting precisely this. It kind of seems that lately some Dev's have gone haring off with "wild and crazy changes" taking the player-base completely by surprise. I have my own opinions as to whether this is good for myself and my guild (no, it is not) as well as the longterm health and stability of the server (I'm not sure yet), but I do wonder at the motivations and cross purposes of the movers and shakers in control of it all.
 
I think all content should be available to pugs, as long as someone has keys/flags/access capable of getting everyone there without breaking any old rules(other than 2/3). I do see the problem with guilds being denied crucial progression content. In part I just want to say suck it up and play better/harder, but I know that is not always possible.

People seem to think that high end pugs are a big problem, and I don't get it. When my t6-10 guild progressed we faced tons of competition, but we eventually worked our way through it, and looking back we had 10 times more fun finally getting something after weeks of it being stolen than we would have if it was just handed to us. Additionally, competition between guilds is far more fierce than pug vs guild competition. Pugs might steal a target from a guild, but they do it for loot. I have seen guilds on numerous occasions steal progression targets from other guilds entirely for the purpose of cockblocking that other guild. None of these new rules will prevent that.

If I could create the new system it would be as such:

Guilds progress normally. Pugs can kill anything that someone in the raid is flaggeg/keyed for.
Guilds get a free pass to every progression mob for their first kill. This means that if a guild has never killed generals, they have a method (GM, flags, coding, cmd, * versions, it would take some work) to spawn said mob if they clear to it and it is not up. After a guild has killed that mob (regardless of whether it was up normally or specially spawned), they then have to compete with everyone else in the normal system. This would prevent cockblocking of progression, slightly increase the overall number raid targets especially at congested tiers, while leaving the game uninstanced. *Obviously there needs to be harsh repercussions for attempts to exploit this.
Lower/Widen repspawn timers: Instead of 4.5-5 day timers, make raid respawns 3-5 days. This decreases predictability, and overall increases the number of mobs available.
Make archaics more common and spread through more zones. I progressed through archaic tiers normally, and because I had bad luck I had to spend an additional 8 months pugging or dragging guildies to kill raid trash. It was/is miserable. (preferrably, have 1 raid mob in the game guarenteed to drop 1 part of each spell, so if you are missing xx page you can target a specific mob for it and not endlessly raid/pug content you dont need in hopes it might drop.
 
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To answer the oeiginal question... YES, there should be content for high level very organized guilds to have pretty much exclsive access.

Simple solution (but likely not a popular one) is to key everything. Tier one zones being the exception to the rule, but in these tier one zones mobs drop shards or gems or whatever. You collect enough, you can turn them in for a Tier 2 zone key.

In the tier 2 zone you collect shards for you Tier 3 zone. And ete etc through the tiers.

This will eliminate the need for a 2/3rds rule. If you dont have the key required you just dont get in.

It will eliminate 2 or 3 ringers taking a raid of low tiered people to a high tiered zone.

The only thing it doesn't do is eliminate the possibility of ringers joining a low-tiered raid to make the raid force vastly over-powered for that particular tier. But, will that happen that often? If so, restrict the drop rates of shards and loot if a person is in the raid that is way to high.

I'm sure there are better and easier to implement ideas out there... just trying to get people thinking about them.
 
Rari said:
Stryda said:
Are you guys moving combine gems around and outside of prison as well?
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Slaariel said:
Immac. armor, gems, and essences will be slowly distributed around don't worry about that... though it will take some time and you may find you've progressed past it by the time it's all out again!

Thaz 1/2 doesn't require keying as such and the difficulty is the same. Woldaff once boasted that thaz 1/2 could be done by a t5-6 guild so time to see about that!

Wisdom frags are my bad and will be dispersed into the wild next patch I am sorry for this oversight.

Quest pieces from the zone will be moved around as well.. this is a process.

It was done because there was no reason to make any T8-9 content because of the incredible mob and loot density in just 1 zone. AND there was no reason to go anywhere else really. AND it could be pugged with impunity. Getting rid of thaz has been a permanent topic in devery for years now and now I'm doing it so we can move past it.

Devs really said 'why make a raid zone, there is thaz' or 'make sure when you make that item you balance it against thaz armor' etc let me say again that thaz was designed as an END GAME ZONE hence its loot density and drops for every slot etc. Now it is a START YOUR PUGS HERE zone that design philosophy does not apply anymore.

I wasn't here when Wiz blew up the Lands of Magic but it's sorta like that.
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Him saying he is moving Thaz gems means NOTHING concerning PRISON COMBINE GEMS...just saying...
 
Woogie526 said:
An alternative to limiting guild vs raidtargets is to provide alternatives to what you can only get from raids. You want people to exp in off the beaten places(exp change) put a small chance of things dropping in them(previously only tied to raids) and people will go there.

Ex. A 1/500 chance of relics dropping in nadox, maybe people will go there more often.

I think having skills/spells tied to only people who can raid and then hating on pugs for hurting guild progression is counter-intuitive.

Character name is Aati.
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/\ This.


The problem is the majority of character progression on any facet is that in order to be a full caster, or preist you need to have your relic spells, your ancient spells, and a few pivotal items which can only be attained by raiding. At one point in time the developers piushed towards this direction. I understand that the server is the baby brainchild of the developers currently directing it. Maybe we need to redirect this thread and have an open discussion about the direction we want this game to take. I'm not saying anyone who reads the thread should feel obligated to make the requested redirection; however it seems as though this is more the question our developers seem to be asking us with all these recent changes.

I think our player base has turned to higher numbers, but higher percentage of casual players or, PuG'ers if you will, while a lower percent of players actually acquire their character upgrades via guild raids. In fact, in most cases people use PuG's to upgrade because their chances might be greater at seeing any loot for one reason or another (i can't think of a ton of reasons).

I made a suggestion once upon a time For Cmal in which ancients were added to the Cmal 3 and 3.2 primary nameds to create opportunities for n0on raiders to acquire these spells.

I think something similar is order for all of these other things we've defined as essential for full character growth and progression.

The standard of 65+ was raised, and now an accept 65 for any average exp is usually at least 100+ aa's and at least 3-4 tier 5 pieces. No one expected a lower tiered raid guild member, but they expect people who have at least been on a pug and gotten something to show for it.

The problem with these changes is 50% of the serious players have progressed beyond the point at which you've now decided is unaccept for anything but guild interaction. This is problematic because high tiered people don't exp with lower tiered people all that often, and if it occurs it;s usually in a leach situation where they are told to sit down, shut up, and not move.

Case and Point: PuG's are not only an essential part in the larger percentage of your server populations progression, they are also an essential part of many of your server's guilds and their recruitment policies. If there's anything my opinion is good at it's tier 5-8, I've been perpetually stuck in those tiers on all of my mains because of my difficult attitude and my previously casual playstyle. I've formed two guilds, and the zones my progression was accredited to were trailblaze situations, none of my strats were handed to me, and in every case required immense dedication and communication with devs. WE stuck it out everytime something didn't work, and we saw it resolved, a level of dedication you do not see anymore at those tiers. My guilds were loyal and solid, and only fell apart when real life afflicted one of us really hard. PuG's taught my raiders how to act, and that dedication really did pull off, and they are part of the growing up process of your adolescent raiders. They need to be better defined, and restricted, but the anti PuG mentality so many of you seem to be adopting ism jsut one example of the isolation alot of the higher tier people seem to be adapting. These are the only way the majority of you interact with probably 80% of the server you spend a good chunk of your life clocked into.

My suggestions would be:

1) Add relics to something scalable in difficulty to relic raid droppers (tier 3-5) but for 6 man or 12 man (if there's any 12 man content for these tiers i Don't currently know about.

2) Create an incredibly difficult and time consuming quest that guild leaders or officers can do to bestoy a gate clickie to their raiders. Something akin to housekey, but that takes you to a zone where /raid isn't broken.

3) find a way to put raid bugs in the grave. These bugs often destroy motivation from raiders and are the horrible scourge that tests most raiders patience. I am aware fixing bugs isn't a snap of the fingers, but this is where your core is dying, it needs to become a priority.

4) We don't need so much new content, and we don't need gigantic zone overhauls. We have tons of content that just isn't' done because it's too buggy or gigantically obscure at low tier (i approve of obscurity at high tier progression, it's not supposed to be easy). I'm going to make a list of these things/places on a new thread.
 
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No, there should not be guild-only content. This is not a members only club. There are players in the game that cannot and/or choose not to be in a guild.

People should be able to be free to play the game how they want. It will change the game over time. This is how MMOs work - you know, player-driven.

The real problem here is that a lot of us older players who had giant chunks of free time to throw at content for years are looking at new players and thinking "Hey! I had to work really hard for that shit! You can't have it!" It's a pretty reactionary feeling that most people get, you just have to be aware of why you feel that way and let reason take over. Pugs are really good for the server, and they shouldn't be shut out of anything just because we say so, that's just going to make it harder for those "fringe" players to have things to do.

P.S. I think the removal of Thaz was a good thing... as long as you get replacement content set up speedy-like. If you aren't, you should put it back until until you're ready to release replacement content.
 
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Severien said:
No, there should not be guild-only content. This is not a members only club. There are players in the game that cannot and/or choose not to be in a guild.

People should be able to be free to play the game how they want. It will change the game over time. This is how MMOs work - you know, player-driven.
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Going to go right on ahead and lol at this.

Casual guilds want to play the game a certain way, who are you to say that limiting their experience is alright? It goes both ways. If we had things like, instances, which we won't (and I personally don't want!) then there really wouldn't be any conflict. But we don't, so there is. This is a very good compromise, the majority of content is still PuGable INCLUDING ToT (which I had hoped to see on the no touchy list.)
 
Magina said:
Going to go right on ahead and lol at this.

Casual guilds want to play the game a certain way, who are you to say that limiting their experience is alright? It goes both ways. If we had things like, instances, which we won't (and I personally don't want!) then there really wouldn't be any conflict. But we don't, so there is. This is a very good compromise, the majority of content is still PuGable INCLUDING ToT (which I had hoped to see on the no touchy list.)
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Going to go right on ahead and lol at this. This bit specifically:

Casual guilds want to play the game a certain way, who are you to say that limiting their experience is alright?
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The only thing limiting the way casual guilds want to play is ... the way they play, which is casually. No one is making a rule that says casual guilds can't do shit. I don't know if you realized this, but you can be in a guild and also go on a pug. A pug is not some formless entity floating around SoD eating everything so that you can't have it, it's just people, and a whole shit of a lot of them are casuals who find a few free hours to join a pug a week. Pugs are one of the MAJOR ways casual guilds are advancing these days - oh my god! Who knew?
 
Yes, they do limit their progression by not playing as much. Did you really need to point that out? I was merely pointing out the fundamental flaw in your argument that for those who want to get a group of friends together and progress only as a guild, who are we to say we can't take a minor step to attempt to protect a little bit of content for them? After all, they want to play the game a certain way.

Pugs can still majorly advance casual guilds (for those who have time!) in the *vast majority* of zones in which they are allowed. I fail to see where your cookies got eaten. Also again, if timers were changed down to like 30 mintues on mobs, or there were instances (for every tier, hi2u tmaps before someone tries to straw man this) then there wouldn't be an issue, because everyone could have punch and pie and be happy all at once. This is not the case.
 
I THINK THERE SHOULD BE CONTENT AVAILABLE TO HIGH LEVEL AND COHESIVE GUILDS AS ORGANIZATIONS RATHER THAN COLLECTIONS OF MERCENARIES.
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To re-emphasize Mythryn's point, high level and cohesive guilds ARE collections of mercenaries! I'm missing the underlying logic here. What exactly is the problem that this change addresses? Is the problem ringers? If it is, just say so! RINGERS! See how easy that was?

And as was already pointed out, it's WAY easier to be in a guild (an active/cohesive guild at that) rather than being without one. I've been in both situations at various times, and progression in a guild is simply easier. The only real difference is that when you're in an active guild, you make sacrifices on your time in order to help guildmates progress. Some people have this luxury and/or are willing to make that sacrifice. Some don't, or can't. I'm not sure we should be out to further exclude the people who don't or can't.

It was done because there was no reason to make any T8-9 content because of the incredible mob and loot density in just 1 zone. AND there was no reason to go anywhere else really. AND it could be pugged with impunity. Getting rid of thaz has been a permanent topic in devery for years now and now I'm doing it so we can move past it.

Devs really said 'why make a raid zone, there is thaz' or 'make sure when you make that item you balance it against thaz armor' etc let me say again that thaz was designed as an END GAME ZONE hence its loot density and drops for every slot etc. Now it is a START YOUR PUGS HERE zone that design philosophy does not apply anymore.
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If Thaz was removed so that Devs regain motivation to create more T8/T9 zones... well that's fine I guess. Although I'm not sure why the devs are trying to develop T8/T9 zones at this point instead of Tier 12/13/14 zones.

People, inflation is an essential aspect of MMOs. If you want to guarantee that the new zones you design won't be used, design it for a player base that's progressed beyond it. Exo, CW and FWF aren't gonna spend time in new T8/T9 zones. The lower tiered guilds will. But then they already had a T8 zone in Thaz, so... I don't see the point.
 
Severien said:
Going to go right on ahead and lol at this. This bit specifically:



The only thing limiting the way casual guilds want to play is ... the way they play, which is casually. No one is making a rule that says casual guilds can't do shit. I don't know if you realized this, but you can be in a guild and also go on a pug. A pug is not some formless entity floating around SoD eating everything so that you can't have it, it's just people, and a whole shit of a lot of them are casuals who find a few free hours to join a pug a week. Pugs are one of the MAJOR ways casual guilds are advancing these days - oh my god! Who knew?
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Let's stop a minute; you are saying is that if rate of progression were a number, determined by the amount you play, let's say a casual guild progresses at a rate of 2, and hardcore progressions guilds progress at 5, these units and numbers are purely fictitious but that's irrelevant.

If a casual guild's rate of progression was scalably lesser than that of a hardcore guild, yes, they progress slower. No one is saying casual players expect to progress rapidly, or even to the upper tiers. Alot of casual players have accepted they won't see tiers 8+. What you do not understand by the nature of your tunnel vision mentality is that casual players would just like to progress at some rate, and these new rules are restricting their ability to do so beyond their already inconvenient schedule for playtimes.

Casual players are already at a disadvantage, we're just further crippling them.
 
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