The only rules are the enforceable rules. Aggressive guilds will take the boss regardless of any unwritten rules which forces the non-aggressive guilds to do the same if they ever want the mob. So the guild that triggers some form of lockout first gets it. After all it’s a game about competing for resources right?
This response was a bit tongue in cheek as I hate boss racing random spawn world bosses. I am more in favor of some form of trigger able boss spawns that require 100+ hours of hunting for a guild to assemble the spawn item. If the triggering guild fails the doors open to the area for others to try until it is killed then it needs spawned again. Rarely it could spawn on its own if it hasn’t been triggered in a while.
I was never a guild leader or officer, but I remember in EQ when two guilds or more were mobilizing for the same raid encounter there was often a negotiation moment. I'm not 100% certain what was negotiated maybe the drop on the mob or maybe just the next time the guilds clashed, they would yield, not sure, but I like the idea or some sort of negotiation.
When I played EQ, the guilds capable of doing raid content formed a schedule which determined which nights a guild would do which raids/bosses. In a situation where there was no such agreement ahead of time it's probably too difficult to say what would happen due to variables. Ideally both guilds would work together and random the loot I guess? At least on this first occasion, since it seems noone had "rights" to said enemy.
Typically when two raid forces meet, its first to engage.
Now back in old EQ there was a negotiation or whatever worked out. Maybe the two raids would coop. Depends.
In more recents games its been FTE and hope your force is ready. Then hope other raid doesn't spam skills and pixels at you trying to make you lag out and wipe.
In the early days of a given MMO the FTE usualy wipes, but as time goes on and experience/gear/levels kick in, the FTE usually wins.
At least thats been my experience.
Its all possible, depends on arriving guilds...
Friendly guilds will talk with each other BEVOR they start to gather for raids. Some guilds dont, and then first comes first serves. Sometimes its competition to get the first hit on the mob.
Seen all this happen in almost every MMO i played. Cant remember which game it was, but there was a server raid calendar where the guilds could sign in the raid on competive Raidtargets. Was a good idea for me, since the preparation and movement to the raid take some time. Its always bad when you have to move 30-40 minutes to a raid to see it locked by another guild 2 min ago. A solution would be a triggered overland mob with some prequest, so its locked to the Char/Raid.
The guild with a raid force ready to pull gets first shot. If both are ready and arrive at the same time, then first to engage. If they succeed, they get a 4-6 hour lockout at the time the mob respawns, which will banish them to zone line if they are in aggro range. Respawns should be semi RNG. Maybe static day respawns timers, but random hours. This, combined with a lockout timer, should help guilds have equal opportunity across time zones, but still keep some pressure on guilds to mobilize and compete with a relatively short lockout.
(My apologies in advance for the long wall of text.)
I have shared my thoughts on MDD vs FTE before and I think they are related to this discussion:
"An open world game poses certain challenges. The important distinction for me is that there are several oldschool MMO's that used FTE to solve some of those challenges, particularly FFXI and Vanguard. I think the concern is less about instancing vs open world and more about preserving encounter challenge (prevent zerging and balancing the risk vs reward of encounters by saying that Mob X is designed to be killed by a single group or raid) and limiting the potential for KS'ing with every worthwhile encounter. Seeing that Vanguard used FTE, I'm really curious on why VR is straying away from that model. I have spoken with plenty of people who played Vanguard for a long time and the vast majority of them were really happy with how mob tagging and lockouts were handled in that game. So just from a design standpoint, I would love to hear why FTE was used in Vanguard, but now we're circling back to MDD which is what was used in EQ. What caused this shift, specifically? Here are my thoughts on FTE vs MDD (Most Damage Done):
First To Engage (FTE) Mechanic
Pros:
Cons:
Additional Considerations:
As a sidenote, I also want to mention that EQOA, which is tied for my favorite MMO of all time (alongside FFXI) did use the MDD model. This is important because my two favorite games both used different models for kill credit, and were both open-world games. So at the end of the day, I am not writing MDD off. But one memory I have with EQOA is that my guild always got kill credit on contested encounters whereas with FFXI competition felt more legitimate. Any time multiple guilds were DPS Racing against a raid boss in EQOA, it was almost inevitable that the mob would die because the encounters simply weren't designed to be killed by an unknown amount of people. As a hardcore raider, I think MDD will create a more favorable competitive landscape for my playstyle. I never saw an underdog story with MDD. You either rolled with the best guild or you lost every race ... and that is the crux of the issue.
If we're going MDD ... so be it! But that model basically encourages competition ... kill credit is defined as "most damage done" not "who got there first." I think it's important to accept that, and own it. If there are going to be rules in place to prevent kill-stealing, that is also something that needs to be clearly defined. If it's open to interpretation, it will create an enormous burden for the CS team. Looking at Gnashurra in Halnir Cave ... there is a door locking mechanic. What is the purpose of that? To prevent competition, or overwhelming the mob (aka balancing risk vs reward of an encounter that is designed for a single group)? Will multiple groups be able to enter that room or will the room have a cap on how many players can be inside at any given point in time? Is there a solid commitment from VR to leverage ghosting in Pantheon, as was the case in Vanguard? I have seen it referenced quite a bit as a potential solution to some of the challenges of "too much competition" but Vanguard used FTE rather than MDD. If ghosting is going to be used, how will the system be evolved to accommodate for an MDD model that poses new variables that didn't need to be considered in Vanguard?"
It all boils down to what kind of competition VR desires. If they want raid forces to take turns then we should be using hard-coded FTE. If they want to encourage DPS-Racing then we should leave things exactly how they are. If they want unspoken rules to play a significant role in how people conduct themselves while vying for hotly contested resources, expect the worst. I expect other players to try and pull bosses onto the back line of their competition to kill them with AoE or frontal/barrage attacks. I expect players to mem-wipe at the worst possible time, to fear adds, break mezz, corpse-hump, teabag, emote/trade spam, so on and so forth. I would add intentional training to this list but since it's been identified as something that players can be suspended for it's fair to assume that it won't be a common practice. There will be plenty of people recording their sessions when Pantheon goes live so I think we'll see some solid recourse for those who are getting intentionally trained. In a nutshell ... everything is fair game unless it's strictly forbidden and considered a reportable offense.
Said this on twitter, but will expand on it here.
All else being equal, it's going to depend on the other guild's reputation. If they have a bad reputation, we will totally try to beat them to the punch. If they have a good or neutral reputation, especially if we know them, we'll probably take the high road and let them go first. Obviously that depends on all else being equal, which would be rare. But guild reputation matters.
That said, I really hope that instances of pure competition like this are super rare. There is absolutely NOTHING worse as a raid leader than having to tell 30 of your friends that sorry, we don't get to raid tonight because everyone else beat us to all the mobs. Pulling together a raid force of "normal" players is HARD. Most guilds only get one or two times a week they can even try - and even then, time windows are limited. You have to wait for your tank to get his kids to bed but you can't run too late because your enchanter has to get up at 5 am to leave for work. And gods forbid if the cleric's in-laws decide to come visit, you won't see him for 3 weeks if that happens.
I get that competition over raid bosses is exciting for some people but the vast majority of us adults can't easily coordinate our schedules. And no, we don't want the alternative of a "raid finder" that groups us up with a bunch of randoms either.
So, stuff needs to be on triggers. Let us spawn the raid encounter or enter the raid zone when we're assembled and ready to take it on. The challenge of beating the encounter should be beating the encounter, not hoping the five other guilds doing it all happened to miss the spawn or take the night off for some reason.
I'm ok with a mixed bag approach where some very rare/special overland encounters are contested, random spawns, because that adds unpredictability to the world. But the bulk of raid content needs to be something that guilds can schedule for, however that is accomplished.
The answer to this question depends on a lot of things and there is no 100% true answer to this.
First of all it depend on the mechanics VR takes in place.
Instances (I know they won't be a thing) would solve this problem completely.
Is the other Group completely out of the fight or can they interfer?
Is the loot shared between all people fighting the boss or is only the group first attempting the boss allowed to loot?
On an RP server you may really see a duel like some of you stated.
On an PvP serer it could be a mixture of attacking the boss and killing people of the other guild.
If the guilds are friends to each other they maybe find a solution in a dialog.
If one of the guilds is not that friendly, then this guild might steal the boss.
This doesn't seem like a valid question. We know the answer is: most damage done gets the kill.
Sure there are other variables...but regardless it seems like ^ above is all that really matters in the end.
Porygon said:Step 1: Set up your groups to maximize dps.
Step 2: Pretend to run atthe mob causing group 2 to also run in
Step 3: Let them tank while all of your tanks and healers dps.
Step 4: Profit.
That only works if threat is locked on first engagement. In every game I've played, EQ included, threat went to the tank doing the best job of taunting or the dps who dumped damage on the mob and out-threated the tank. Your suggestion would require a careful balance of dps'ing enough to "win" the loot but without out-threating the tank, all while ensuring your raid is doing more damage than the other.
I've been in exactly this situation before in EQ. Negotiations failed between raid leaders and both raids attacked the boss. Ours dumped dps on the boss, frequently took aggro and we still lost the dps race to win the loot. All in all it was a couple hours none of us will ever get back and we'll never know how close we were to winning that fight.
philo said:This doesn't seem like a valid question. We know the answer is: most damage done gets the kill.
Sure there are other variables...but regardless it seems like ^ above is all that really matters in the end.
EQ2 would prevent you from attacking a mob that was aggro'ed on someone else not in your group or raid. This meant there was never a situation where two raids were fighting the same boss at the same time and also that you couldn't help your lower level friend escape a bad encounter.
It was a terrible mechanic, added to the game for the right reasons but with very negative side effects, including the ridiculous immersion breakage of not being allowed to attack a mob running through the forest with nobody else in sight.
To me, the deciding factor will be how AND IF a lock-out is part of the Game mechanic. The lock-out being the mechanic that was succesfull in vanguard iirc.
FTE and fail - Lockout enganged? if so when does the lock-out take effect? is there a time limit between when FTE is done and when lock-out is enabled and is there a percentage minimum of players in area group/raid to be considered for FTE? (this would prevent tagging and if the force doesnt show up in time, all are locked-out) if FTE and fail the guild will not be ableto re-engage but the other guild may, and if they win get the loots.
MMD and fail - If two engage and one does more damage, and the monster dies- do both guilds get locked-out? This would also depend on Monster re-spawn timing. if Guild A engages and does not do MMD, they fail and are locked out. if both engage and monster dies- both guilds get locked out? with the one doing MMD "winning" the encounter and getting the loots.
Personally I would prefer FTE and lockout mechanic with specifically raid targets not being attackable by guild B untill the event re-sets.
Which would be different from other , regular overland monsters. See a named at 50pct health and no one in the zone? ho-ho-HO! maybe the 20's group of 6 can take down Fion! she's half dead already! wait, look at all those corpses, hmm, maybe we should send a tell and ask what's going on, but if we beat her and scoot, she will reset an no one will know. Otherwise if we are staying to head to ramparts we can say she was gone when we got hwere, if they come back for rezzes n stuff.
First to engage. Simple.
If they can handle it, they got there first and got the job done. Loot, profit, win.
If they can't handle it, stand back, watch them wipe, engage boss while standing on their corpses. Loot, profit, /corpsehump competing guild's corpses, win.
Nothing very complicated about the contested spawn.
Akilae said:philo said:This doesn't seem like a valid question. We know the answer is: most damage done gets the kill.
Sure there are other variables...but regardless it seems like ^ above is all that really matters in the end.
EQ2 would prevent you from attacking a mob that was aggro'ed on someone else not in your group or raid. This meant there was never a situation where two raids were fighting the same boss at the same time and also that you couldn't help your lower level friend escape a bad encounter.
It was a terrible mechanic, added to the game for the right reasons but with very negative side effects, including the ridiculous immersion breakage of not being allowed to attack a mob running through the forest with nobody else in sight.
This is interesting. Seems like rather than prevent damage, you just get removed from the loot table if you are not the first to engage, or maybe even banished from the area.
So guild A is first to do damage, but guild B could still dps, but with no reward. OR when they attack 2nd, they are added to threat list temporarily and banished away from the area, which clears them from the threat list. There could also be some sort of visual cue, like a debuff that alerts the guild that they were not first to engage. I kind of like the banish idea the most, because it helps prevent zerg tactics, and it also assists in keeping performance reasonable by reducing player count in that area.
If guild A wipes, the threat list is cleared and all these mechanics reset, allowing guid b to come in and have their attempt, assuming they are staged nearby outside of aggro radius. These are the types of mechanics I wish to see, in adition to lockouts. Guilds will still compete, but with some limitations so they aren't just steamrolling each other, or feeling compelled to play 24/7 to stay ahead of the pack.