AX Classic EqEmulator Forums

Well, that last re-boot was my final attempt to fix the bot raids ...
This whole raid thing has taken over all my time for this, and thing is, I never had raiding in mind when i started with the bots! I've always been happy just to play in normal groups (even on live).
No telling what causes this - I've made so many changes, but only tested in groups, and not raids.

I'm revising the quest scripts to allow 20 bots, if that fails, then 15, then 10, or tell the server stabilizes again. I figure if we can come up with a number of bots that does not crash the zone, then the players can get together and raid the tough ones.

I don't think raiding is this important, I've played Everquest since they started (passionately!), and never raided once - this doesn't mean I don't want to fix it, I tried my best, but zones just keep crashing.

Thanks for everything you tried (and replaced). We appreciate the time and effort that you put into The Rathe.



That is one of the reasons I left EQ. I could not dedicate the time to waiting for raids to form and hope that some other guild hadn't sniped our zone. I had to buy my epic ( well the equivilant) and spend more time trading in the bazaar because I could not dedicate hours and hours every day WHEN the guild needed me. I can pop on and off all day, but not Real life was and is more important than being reliable in EQ.





I will try whatever solution you come up with out of respect and dedication to your hard work, but I will probably leave because of this. Not out of anger or spite, but out of frustration because of the above mentioned reasons - I like playing on The Rathe because I CAN socialize AND have fun AND be independant.
Raiding Veeshan's Peak with Oggy and Shadow was fun. But it was spur of the moment, and I didn't need to raid with them, but had fun with them. If I am REQUIRED to coordinate with 2 or 3 or 4 independant people and their raidforce, I will not be able to do it. I cannot set time aside like this with kids and the family taking precedence. They have too many variables =)



Then would it be easier to rework the loot from the main bosses to drop off any mob in the zone with like a 3% chance or so? That would make dungeon crawling fun and worthwhile if we have no way to overthrow the end boss or even the mini-bosses.

Again. Thanks Angelox. We will either work through this or see what happens when the dust settles =)

You mean the Raid boss? we could also tone them down to match what every is the final number of bots we can muster without crashing the zone.
But first we need to be sure what bot numbers are workable

I feel the same way. I am looking forward to killing some bosses! Another idea is one I had thought of when building a home server. Maybe tweak the bosses themselves (hitpoimts, power, etc?) to make them doable with a group of 20, or 15 or whatever the final number may come to be?

IMO, End bosses should be left as-is. Unatainable unless you have a group of two or three raids to take them out. I hate not being able to do it myself (having worked instead to build up and equip a raidforce to do it). I believe the reward should be higher though. Temple of Veeshan dragons and Veeshan's Peak dragons only drop ONE item at a time? Seems kinda weak. Even I drop 20+items at my level when I die. =P

I'm still sticking to making grouping or mini-raiding (a 20 or 15 bot cap) rewarding in itself. WIth random boss loot-tables added to all mobs with a Defiant-armor style drop rate. I could live with this or something similar.

I see both sides of this. I still lean toward tuning bosses to be doable with bots available. Mainly because I play alone. The chatting is fine but I cannot dedicate the time or resource to playing with someone else or relying on someone else. It would still be nice to kill and enjoy the boss encounters, not just attain the loot via dungeon crawling

Well, I hate to see you guys drop out because of this, lets try and remove the raid timers, see if that changes anything - I can always use global flags for that.
I thought slowing the raid re-poping down would fix things up, but I also reasoned if it took a player longer to form a raid, they would think twice before re-popping a raid, just for the heck of it.
Let's see what happens with this next fix, then we'll discuss further.
While looking back at this, I saw where I might have screwed up with this timer (don't bet on it ), it would be the one thing I took for granted as working - but if it delays other raid spawners in the zone, then it's no good anyway.
A character-specific global variable would be a better way to go.
The servers been restarted with the the raid timer removed

I'm sorry if this has been answered elsewhere previously, but do you know 100% it even has anything to do with bots? Zones would never crash if we had 26 live players in the zone and killed a boss? Again apologies if this has been covered. I unfortunately agree that I would either open my server again or go back to PEQ if we couldn't raid anymore. I THROUGHLY Enjoy your server and you are a FANTASTIC GM (Speaking from personal experience on many other servers with multiple GM's). You have put a lot of time and effort in here and you are due much credit and thanks but the raiding is what makes it fun for me. I understand how frustrated you must be with the lack of server stability, as I'm sure quite a few of us have become also, but we know it's nothing you've done and as Toe has mentioned, I'll gladly assist you any way I can to help you resolve this problem. I'd much rather us spend time helping you solve the issue instead of taking away what keeps it fun for a good portion of the high level guys

Again, a big thank you! And we feel your frustration, anything I can do to help I'll be glad to assist!

Here's what I changed, and will take full effect tomorrow;
-first five bots are unaffected, everthing is the same.
-next 10 bots are available at 45.
-last 10 bots at 55 (total 25 bots).

I can't remember if this is the proper number we worked with, but this won't take effect tell tommorrow, so I can still change it.

I removed the spawnraid timer, as it causes less zone crashes, and it will compensate for the shortage of bots.

EDIT: total 25, not 20 bots

This new limit is set now, I had to clear out the saved raid group tables for this to work, so you have to remake raid groups to save.

Angelox:
You and your team have done a fantastic job at recreating this iconic classic. I get the same feeling of excitement as I once did, every time I log in. You have my undying gratitude for putting forth all this time and effort into recreating the best game I have ever played.

Not to cause a huge fuss, but what about those players that have dedicated tons of time farming money and gear for more than 25 bots? I know Toestomper for one has invested hefty sums of time to raise his raid group past that mark and to me it seems rather unfair to minimize his efforts. Would there be some form of compensation for this? (I don't even think I qualify for this, as I think I have exactly 25 bots anyway, but I feel bad for those that have spent the time and effort to achieve a huge raiding force.)

I am absolutely not against having a 25 bot limit. I actually was thinking this may be a solution and even a way for us to band together more often. But like Toestomper was saying, 1 loot drop from Veeshan's Peak bosses is terrible if you have 3-4 players raiding it, with 25 + bots each...we are talking about 75-100+ characters that could potentially use that drop. The demand is really high to garner such cooperation. It would make it a lot easier to get help if everyone had a chance to get something.

If this is to be the solution, then it would seem logical to make raid bosses drop more loot per kill or make it so loot drops randomly off trash mobs. I would also like to see time spent on revising bot raid commands and bot spells. The better the bots are at doing their jobs, the less number of bots are needed. Being able to command other raid bots to perform under your command is essential if lowering bot numbers is to take place.

Thank you again for putting forth the effort and I am extremely excited to get back and test out the new changes.


Warmest Regards,

Oggy Finskie
"I ate something funny under a log one day...three days and three nights I waited for it to pass...on the fourth day, Toestomper slid out of my butt. True story."