You mention an interesting thing there. I happen to be in that very situation where my colleagues, two in particular, are afding on their shift. I could be so miffed I could go and report them to the boss have them suspended and eventually see them on the street, but then I realise… it’s not my business. I do my work, I turn in the hours I do and they, who carry the rep of the rep of the department (half the time) are none of my concern. I look after my own back and I do the same here, it’s an unfair world what can I say- even fairy tale ones.
I think that then you should fight for your rights.
If people in their office do not work I do not care (even if it makes me nervous), but if people do not work in my office it means that I have to work for me and for them or be punished for the lack of efficiency of the whole office, then it starts to become a MY problem and at least I do my best to solve this situation at the root
I am at the same level as them so I rarely have to take up any slack. They will simply try it on too many times and be found out for what they are. Frankly I don’t get paid enough to be a proxy boss and neither does the boss tbh but it’s their responsibility. I am confident that news of my abilities gets to the ears of those who wants to hear it and as for the other two… life’s too short.
I am happy that you are happy but I do not agree.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
Your indifference, just because the problem does not affect you directly, makes you an accomplice, but I do not want to speak in this place of morality or philosophy, I want to go back to talking about the game and I repeat:
a solution that punishes me that I want to play (deserter buff 30 min) and reward those who do nothing (relic IV to be afk) to me is not well.
It hurts me, the players who like me love this game and the game itself and so I have every right to protest.
PS: 30 minutes of punishment are not few, I have (and a lot of people as me, that work all day) only a couple of hours in the evening, during the week to play and i dont like waste them because people want be rewarded to AFK, while who is afk all day obviously has nothing better to do!!!
Again, lets be serious please. I can’t believe there are people who think that those 24 or 48 who play a RF are responsible for raids or 6 men dungeons not happening. Most of the time 2 RF on the same time are going on, 3 is very rare, maybe only on Mondays. Don’t expect that raids or 6 men dungeons to be announced in chat like " hi guys, guild xxxxx does a raid, we are full but we just wanted you to know"
This happens only when they don’t have enough players and then they are usually looking for 3 or 4 players of some classes and they usually find them in 5-10 min.
It is not the people doing rf RIGHT NOW. It is about the people, mainly new players, that will not ever participate in dungeons or raids that reward with items inferior to T4. Befor the rf went live there were a lot of more pug raids, or open raidforces for T1,2,3, and a lot of more group searching going on. Of course some of that is due to the aging of the game, more people leave than are coming into the game. But establishing a way to skip a lot of content and most of the learning grounds changed the game, and not for the better.
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Most definitely the number of pug T1 thru T4 raids has gone down quite noticeably since Raid Finder started.
even if 1 or 2 rf are going, how many more people are there in queues ? and those people cannot join other group stuff without leaving the queue.
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And Funcom will not code it so we can see WHERE we are in the queue or even how many are in the queue …if we could see that RF is at 1/14 damage, 0/4 tanks, 1/6 healers …then we’d know we are waiting for a long time for no purpose and look for other content to participate in …or even if its 18/14 damage, 2/4 tanks, 5/6 healers…then we could actually ask for what is needed to spawn the next RF instead of this pointless “healer needed” “tank needed” stuff… .and if you can see you are #17 in the damage queue then you can decide if you take a chance some in queue will decline when it spawns or instead leave to participate in something else.
I have waited for over 3 hours for a RF to spawn many times on Crom …trying to get one RF for the purple box for a character. At the moment on Saga there might be one or two RF spawning frequently…but this is not the typical case on Crom for many months now
You can see how many groups other than raid finder are running … these are few and far between outside of the main EU play time. Before raid finder started on Saga there were many 6mans groups formed and many more being advertised. The introduction of Raid finder not only decreased that number dramatically it also allowed people to complete the Saga Quest line rapidly and hence lose motivation to play on Saga. For example, I got the Saga quest line finished within 48 hours of getting to level 80 (yes I know I’m lucky there) … there needed to be additional carrots to keep people playing to keep numbers up …weekly quests with desirable rewards (eg alantean shard boxes, rare trophy boxes) which are separate & optional to the main quest …so that the slower leveling players and people who are still looking for raids to complete their Saga quest line have players to play with …
Additionally, the people stopping on Saga has not had the flow on effect that Crom’s activity is returning to normal …it is deserted still outside of pre-organised raids and the few hours after RF reset.
Give people shortcuts and they will take it, even though they understand
its not good for them.
the game used to have a healty progression where u gradually learned the game and tackled harder challanges step by step. I hope I didnt loose you already, this is a pretty easy concept.
Raidfinder’s rewards was a desperate move allowing fresh 80 character go all the way to t4, this update was the last drop, making loyal veterans leave the game, and a new army of t4 geared people without a clue of how to play replaced them. Guilds died and now the population consist of 90% clueless hopeless players with a confused approach to what the game is supposed to be, “how will i progress from t4 gear?? Hand me over t5 and t6 in the same old raidfinder, because getting T6 gear in T4 is too hard.”
^ Yes, a handfull of new gen aoc players have claimed that getting T6 weapons in T4 raids is unfair and too hard. Sigh.
but they are not to be blamed, they are not the disease, just the symptom of a rotten system.
aoc after RF is the equivellant of traffic in a city where driverslicenses was to be given away without education and drivers-test.
yeah what u taste is bitterness 
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My biggest problem is that people who play seriously bad without any knowledge of their class / of the encounter think that they are doing the right thing because they are getting T4 gear.
My ToS on the saga server got no T4 gear because I simply don’t care about that char, it only exists for the sake of the quest, my “main” ToS on Crom got far better gear and all that stuff. Still, with my epic khitai crap it’s laughably easily able to out-DPS / out-Heal most T4 geared ToSes, Demos, Assassins and so on - simply because they were farming RF non stop without learning anything about their class.
Those people join real group content now - they try to do Chaos or T’ian’an but they are completely useless. When trying to tell them what they did wrong or how they can improve (seeing a T4 geared Demo with only 400 DPS at a tank and spank boss should NEVER EVER happen) they respond with things like
“Why do you with your crap gear try to tell me how to play better? I got the better gear so what?”.
The Raidfinder encourages bad behavior because even if you play completely bad and “useless” you get rewarded with the best gear but once they try to do the real stuff they get hit hard in their face by reality.
Making it even easier to get more of the higer tier sets so easy will change nothing, the same people will still stay bad and never be able to do a normal Mona / Palace run because they simply haven’t yet understood how to properly play their character since you can just do whatever you want in the RF.
I stopped counting how often I had to tell T4 geared PoMs that they have a burst healing spell, they didn’t know about it, never used it before. Or T4 geared Guards that still forget to use Defensive stance, never used it, never even seen it.
In my opinion the RF didn’t close the gap between veterans and new players - it actually increased that gap by artificially rewarding new players with the feeling they are doing the right thing while playing their character completely wrong.
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@Delred Yeah that’s something I saw happening in a lot of RFs too, a single Demo pet outDPSing 3 or even 4 people… I really wonder how that is even possible.
If Funcom is ever going to do another Saga Server please just disable the Raidfinder, it just hurt this server really bad in my opinion. Groups rarely run (other than Chaos) because doing HMs or UC dungeons is basically insignificant when compared to the RF rewards.
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This is when I test if there is a word limit on posts and what happens when you have internet on a two hour train journey…
Saga of Zath what I liked:
Seeing lots of groups forming for six person dungeons at all levels in global/NPH and filling quickly. And seeing the player and pvp window group list full of groups…
I liked that in the first couple of weeks of the server that level 80 six person instances were frequently being run.
What I did not like:
Feeling pressured to get to level 80 quickly because as soon as raid finder would be released most of the people I play with would complete the entire Saga of Zath quest line and have very little reason to play … meaning I’d miss out on completing the goal with friends.
I also didn’t like that there was such a big reward attached to completing a set of raids …And after completing this there was no Extra incentives to continue playing on a Saga of Zath. I know how few players like to lead raids, and that getting into a successful PuG raid can be hard…I really feel for players who don’t find a group who can clear these instances … even though all these raids have been on farm for years as PuGs and are even easier now than when they were first PuGged out … my beloved game has lost so many knowledgeable raid leaders who can herd us undisciplined cats to success…raid finder is not helping people learn if they are doing well or poorly on their character to know if they are ready to step into harder content.
I really disliked that raid finder was activated on the server. As soon as that came in the six person level 80 groups being run drastically reduced… not only those looking for people externally but generally.
I disliked that ALL my claims were disabled. Some like free fast mount I don’t mind so much, but the paths I paid for…large account wide bag, the account bound expertise point jars and xp/aa boost potions …yes I do resent that …especially as most of those things are for sale in the ingame shop … so not exactly unobtainable for a new player.
@andyb What I would like for the next PvE server:
- a focus on small group play …six person instances.
- NO RAID FINDER!!!
- NO automatic full tier armour sets at level 80…allow us the fun of earning it for ourselves through gameplay … incorporate earning some nice but not overpowering level 80 pieces whilst we level and complete Saga special quests goals.
- a Saga quest line with six person instances as the goals with rewards for completing sections of it BUT not needing all of them to be done.
Eg: complete Black Castle, Sanctum Of Burning Souls etc within level = AA Xp potion, two t1 raid tokens, house Of Crom lvl80 blue gear items or khitai blue items per instance.
And the only consequence of not doing one of them at level is you don’t get those things associated with that instance as extras. Failure to complete doesn’t prevent you from doing the next dungeon up. The bigger reward being the more of it you complete the more claim boxes you will get with …atlantean shards? (You do need 6500 of these after all to get rings & gems) - at level 80, a series of quests again focused on a completing a variety of six man instances with extra Known rewards (no lottery boxes, they spoil game play immensely…all THAT effort for 75 imperial insignias… please … “why did I bother” is what I feel when this is the reward). A similar concept to “Mastering the old world” quest that requires four instances to complete. But with a variety of instances and number of instances to make for less pressured more flexible game play.
- make the lvl80 quests similar to the poster boards in Khitai zones… you can only have one- three running at a time. Put a cool down on them so the same can’t be picked up again immediately. Change them every fortnight to a different combination of available ones …yes they can be reused. Ensure that you can complete any after they have been rotated off the current table … that way people can still complete them if partway through the set of dungeons at any time. Each week have at least one that can be completed without requiring AAs so new level 80s can complete in random group, perhaps the rewards for these one be focused on AA gain…eg expertise points, AA pots.
None of this would stop someone without the extra reward quest from doing the six mans. None of this would stop people from running or attending raids …especially as part of it there would be cool downs on taking more Saga special quests.
What would a reasonable bigger picture reward be for participating in this? This I haven’t thought out completely … maybe X set of level 80 Saga special quests completed = duplicate sets of ?? T5 weapon? 60 t4 tokens+dragon tear? 500 atlantean shards? A legendary chaos gem or gems? (For all of who have chased those since the instance opened knows how many you have to do to get that “perfect” gem drop and win it.) And unfortunately many people never do chaos at all, but have put the blue BoE gems in rings instead.
And yes the more active players who complete multiples of the X number will get more reward for it… or again people will stop as soon as the target number is reached …and these obsessive grinders are often those who form and teach the instances.
What I have found is I learned to play my characters better in small groups than in the anonymity of a 24 person raid.
Don’t get me wrong, player-lead raids are a lot of fun, I’ve made new acquaintances and friends through attending PuG raids.
But in comparison to raids, especially the random nature of RF, small group instances are more personal and easier to get to know people and know if you want to play with them.
And this is what I’d hope we would gain from this type of PvE server, players who know how to play their classes effectively, have experience in dealing with a variety of game mechanics, sets of people who like playing with each other. The gear you can obtain through the level 80 six mans (epic Khitai gear, unchained epics) sets you up very well to tackle t3.5 and t4. Some unchained items are nearly equivalent to t4. And when you can do many of the six mans, you will be able to master the harder raids very quickly …
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Ok then, we have 48 players doing RF RIGHT NOW + 50 are queued RIGHT NOW, i will be generous and say 150 queued. From the guild ranklist i see that some 2000+ are playing on saga. You people now want to convince me that 5%, i make it 10% because i’m generous today, but only for today ,of the whole server population have such a big gamebreaking effect? What are the other 90% doing RIGHT NOW? Thats why i’m saying all the time, please let us be serious!
You really compare the total players on Saga with the current players in RF and demand others to be serious? 
Yes why not? How should i compare it? Current players online with current players in RF? Don’t you think some people logged in just to do RF and nothing more? Maybe in this moment “RIGHT NOW” the RF players are 100% of the people logged in, but this is only a single moment. In 2 hours from now they are maybe only 50% of the population. This is changing all the time, but 200 players doing RF all the time are still 10% of the whole population of 2000+.
You can not tell how many people are queued in raid finder.
And yes you should be comparing how many are in raid finder versus how many level 80s are on right now …also comparing it to how many 6man groups are formed doing raids(non RF) and 6mans and minigames …at the time you are sampling … and you can’t use steam numbers as they don’t count all of us who do not access the game via steam.
As to what the other 90% of those in the guilds listed on ranking …say 1800 people are doing …it’ll be a mixture of sleeping, working, shopping, watching tv etc etc etc of non-AoC related activities…we aren’t all in the same time zone you know. (When you made your RIGHT NOW post, this one of the 90% for example, was cleaning window screens for my partners elderly mother on Easter Friday afternoon)
And if as you say 100% of those at lvl80 logged in just to do RF…well when that batch log off what evidence do you have or I have that the next batch who log will do the same or any different…
Your argument would be more convincing if you said “two RF running, plus x raids, x groups formed and x groups looking for ppl and x mini games running” …from what you write it supports the argument that RF is the only group content occurring Right Now when you looked.
It has become the dominating spontaneous content to the detriment of people getting the feedback they need from the game that they are playing effectively/well or whatever word you want to use to indicate you can “do what’s needed on that class” whether it be tank, off tank, heal&deal damage or pump out damage …
the real raids don’t give you damage buffs and health buffs when you fail…so when your group beats it after some wipes you know the instance was just as tough as when you first walked in so it’s your group that’s improved in performance and not some artificial modifier that has boosted you.
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I’m talking here about the RF farmers, not those people who do 1 RF on Monday or 2-3 the whole week between their raids and other stuff. I see every evening i play that usually 2 RF are going on, 48 players + 150 are queued, (because as i said i will be generous today), and 150 is to high, it’s just almost impossible that 150 players are queued and there are not even 4 healers and 4 tanks among them so a 3d RF pops. I assume that those 200 players are RF farmers and they just log in the game to farm the RF, they just don’t play nothing else. You can put 'em all on ignore if you like, so you have nothing more to do with them. You still have a player base of 1800 players you can play with, doesn’t matter how many are online when you are. As i said forget those RF farmers they just don’t want to play with you and you not with them. They are still only 10% of all the players on Saga. As an extreme example, right now on Crom not a single RF is going on, does that mean that Crom is now clean from RF farmers? On Mondays almost everybody, 99% of the people logged in Crom do RF, does that mean that 99% of the Crom players are RF farmers?
Yeah indeed, its not closing the gap, just maintaining it
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