NToV Rotation Proposal version 2

[Sirensa]

Previous thread was getting a bit cluttered and off-topic in parts, so I wanted to start over and see if I can summarize what it seems people have agreed to:

NTOV ROTATION GUIDELINE PROPOSAL:

1. Each guild in rotation is given 7 days to clear NToV. This 7 days is consecutive and may not be restarted at any time due to scheduled or emergency patches. Under no circumstances is a guild allowed to extend their raid beyond 7 consecutive days without the consent/agreement of the other guilds in the rotation.

2. NToV mobs consist of Eashen, Ikitar, Aaryonar, Feshlak, Dagarm, Kreizzen, Mirnella, Koi`Dokken, Zlexak, Cekenar, Sevelak, Jorlleag, Nevederia, Vyemm and Vulak.

A Rotation turn is secured by killing Aaryonar. Aaryonar is the gatekeeper of NToV and should be killed by the 2nd day of your guild's turn. If you cannot kill Aaryonar within the allotted 2 day limit, your turn is forfeit, and the next guild in line is up.

3. Ending/Beginning a new rotation turn. It is possible that guild's can take anywhere from 1-7 of their allotted days to clear NToV. In the event that a guild takes the entire 7 days, the next guild up in rotation is allowed 1 day between the previous guild's raid and the start of their raid to allow for spawns to "catch up". (Example - ML is in NToV and takes their full 7 days, ending on a Friday, Vindication is up next, they can choose to start their raid either Saturday or on Sunday, without being penalized). In the event a guild is finished with their turn in less than 7 days, the next guild up will have their turn commence anytime within 24 hours of Aaryonar's respawn.


Thoughts? Anything we should add, subtract, consider otherwise.

If this is agreed to, it should start with Vindication's turn, commencing when ML is finished at the end of this week.

[Andaas]

Need the Vulak clause as well, although we would need to work something out if Vulak is the last dragon standing, and a guild waits until day 8 to fight him, and Aaryonar or another dragon spawns - as the following guild in rotation is technically due that new spawn.

[Rezz]

According to the posts by Ciner and various ML peoples, Nwing can and has been mostly cleared in 2-3 days. I see no reason that after a 7 day test run that the total time allowed for clearing ToV should be greater than 5 days (4 to clear and 1 extra incase vulak doesn't die on time but everything else does).

ML cleared most the zone over the weekend, Vindication has claimed that they have cleared all but 3 dragons in 2 days, and Hoss proposed the 4 day limit after a 8 day raid. (yes I know it was interrupted but lets not get bogged down in details =P) I think that, in the interest in keeping this rotation moving as much as possible (hey, we all like killin dragons right?), that 4 days to clear with a 5th day for Vulak is more than reasonable once a guild has cut it's teeth on Nwing. And this is coming from a guild that hasn't stepped foot into nwing yet. All in the interest in fitting the maximum number of spawns in the smallest amount of time as possible, and it encourages guilds that CAN clear the zone fast to do so, thus ensuring the most spawns in the smallest time frame.

Other than that, it seems totally reasonable when Andaas' vulak clause is included. Kudos.

[Andaas]

In the future, I would like to see that people make sure to get Aaryonar killed in a timely manner. ML started their raid this week from the back of NToV, which Hoss has done as well previously. However, by not killing Aaryonar during the first 2 days, you can potentially cause odd spawn timing for those that follow you.

That was one of the primary reasons I wrote the Aaryonar rule. If everyone isn't using the zone similarly, then respawn may be thrown off by 3-5 days, depending on how the previous guild ran their raid.

Hoss *does* have the ability to start a raid from the back, as Vindication does too I am sure. However, some of us enjoy raiding this zone from the front as it was intended.

[Quintall_ML]

Actually, we prefer it that way as well.

Being our first time in though, we wanted to see the effects and what we would need to do for every dragon on our first run, so we stayed camped at the safe spot to pick up where we left off.

We did kill Aary on the way in, first try even. I don't see that there will be any issue with, in the future of course, making sure that if a guild is caught by a patch, they restart from Aary.

[Sirensa]

Originally posted by Andaas
Need the Vulak clause as well, although we would need to work something out if Vulak is the last dragon standing, and a guild waits until day 8 to fight him, and Aaryonar or another dragon spawns - as the following guild in rotation is technically due that new spawn.
If you have not cleared Vulak in 7 days, Aaryonar and others will start to respawn. If Aaryonar has respawned before you kill Vulak, tough luck, IMO. Unless we decide that guilds should be given less than 7 days to clear, there is no way a Vulak clause would work.

I guess what we really need to decide is how many days? 4, 5, 7? If we decide on 4-5 days, there is potential problem with fighting over "leftover dragons". I think the fairest way would be to rotate leftovers on a separate schedule, as I have shown in example below.

Leftovers will not always be fair, sometimes 2 could be up, sometimes more, tough luck.

EXAMPLE:
based on a 5 day rotation turn, with 1 day Vulak Clause, rotating leftovers

Guild A, B, C and D rotate NToV. Guilds C and D have cleared 100%.

Week 1:
Guild A clears all but 3 dragons in their 5 days. (Monday-Friday)
Guild C is given 2 days cleanup duty. (Saturday/Sunday)
DOH Emergency patch Saturday night - sucks they lose Sunday

Week 2:
Guild B clears all but Vulak in their 5 days. (Sunday-Thursday)
Guild B is given one extra day to attempt Vulak. (Friday) Doh they failed!
Guild D is given 1 day cleanup duty and kills Vulak (Saturday)

Week 3:
Patch Scheduled for Tuesday.
Guild C opts to start their raid patch day.
Guild C clears ALL dragons in 5 days. (Tuesday - Saturday)
No cleanup required.

Week 4:
Guild D waits until Tuesday for respawn
Guild D clears ALL dragons in 5 days cept Vulak cause he spawned slow grrr (Tuesday-Saturday)
Guild D is given Sunday to kill Vulak the slowpoke.
No cleanup required

I think this plan would probably waste the least amount of spawns possible, while encouraging people to clear in the fastest manner possible. I am fairly confident that everyone will get faster at clearing and leftover problems will soon be minimal.

I would still add the Aaryonar clause of needing to have him killed by the 2nd day of your raid to ensure your full 5 day turn. Also that any guild can postpone their raid 1 day after the previous guild on cleanup duty vacates to allow for all dragons to be spawned within their 5 day turn. If a patch is SCHEDULED within 24-48 hours of a guild's starting date turn, they should be allowed to postpone their raid until patch day. All other scheduled and emergency patch rotation issues are tough luck, unless otherwise agreed to by every guild in rotation.

Obviously it is impossible for every turn to be 100% perfect. Stuff happens. Anyone who actually understood my example gets mass kudos!

[Quintall_ML]

So, lemme see if I got this right, since mass kudos from Sirensa to me would be a day to mark on our calendars, lol.

two rotations:

Full spawn and Cleanup.

Full Spawn runs a, b, c, d

Cleanup runs c, d, a, b, so there is a rotational skip to avoid back to back cleanup/full spawn?


However, is 1 day enough to allow for a full respawn guild to postpone after a cleanup in order to get a full respawn in 5 days, minus Vulak clause?

Vulak/Vyemm/Lady M are done on a cleanup, respawn is 7 days. Full spawn begins the day after they are actually killed, guild up has 5 days to kill, 6 if they take one day extension for spawning purposes....end result is missing the respawn of Vulak/Vyemm/Lady M? However, give them two days to extend, and their day 5 from actual start would happen the day Vulak/Vyemm/Lady M all spawn?

Anyhow, think I got the gist of what yer saying there Sirensa.

Edit: Noticed a possible issue here, couple actually.

If C and D don't need cleanup, then the next time A does, who cleans up? By running a separate rotation for cleanup, based on the above example, A would be up for cleanup, of their own Full Spawn.

If we run them concurrently, so A=C, B=D, C=A, D=B, someone would end up getting a large overkill of spawns by virtue of their 'partner' guild's failures. For example, if A consistenly failed Vulak, C would consistently get 2 spawns for every 1 spawn of B and D.

ugh, the convulutions!

[Sirensa]

You get 95% Kudos, Quintall =D


Full Spawn runs a, b, c, d

Cleanup runs c, d, a, b, so there is a rotational skip to avoid back to back cleanup/full spawn?
Correct, but note that cleanup spawn rotation only consists of guilds who HAVE done a full clearing in the past, either on their first try (which is extended to get the lay of the land) or in subsequent 5 day turns. So in the example I gave, would not be all 4 guilds, just C and D.


However, is 1 day enough to allow for a full respawn guild to postpone after a cleanup in order to get a full respawn in 5 days, minus Vulak clause?
I was thinking about that too. Maybe in the event Vulak is killed on the day before Aaryonar due to respawn, we could allow up to 2 days to postpone the next raid start, or whatever is necessary to guarantee them a shot at Vulak if they clear within their allotted time frame.

The last thing we would want to do is have a guild spend 5 days in NToV per rules and have absolutely zero chance at Vulak, because he did not spawn.

Does this seem fair?

[Sirensa]

If C and D don't need cleanup, then the next time A does, who cleans up? By running a separate rotation for cleanup, based on the above example, A would be up for cleanup, of their own Full Spawn.

If we run them concurrently, so A=C, B=D, C=A, D=B, someone would end up getting a large overkill of spawns by virtue of their 'partner' guild's failures. For example, if A consistenly failed Vulak, C would consistently get 2 spawns for every 1 spawn of B and D.

It may work out sometimes that a cleanup guild has cleanup duty, then their spawn turn. That's just the way the rotations roll.

This plan would work best operating under the assumption that guilds who have cleared it all once, will clear it all again more often than not. Soo guilds C and D should not need cleanup (usually!)

Soo if C gets cleanup on A, D gets cleanup on B, if C fails to clear full, then D would get cleanup from C. D clears all. A clears most, C gets cleanup. So yes, D would get a few more spawns, but in clearing in their allotted time frame, they have earned those extra spawns. Once in the cleanup rotation, you should remain in it, despite potential failures.

Personally, I would not find it fair to get to clean up after yourself, so if for some reason C did not clear all, then D would get cleanup, and vice versa. As soon as A and B do their full clearing in their allotted time, they can be put to the back of the cleanup rotation.

Assuming of course that with all the phat lewt in ntov and with more and more practice, the need for a cleanup rotation at all in a few months will be minimal and usually reserved for the newer guilds to the NToV rotation.

I feel like I am in some sort of demented math class, but I swear this make sense in a fair way in my head!

[Sirensa]

Additional clause I feel should be added to NToV rotation guidelines:

The current guild clearing is responsible for posting which dragons were killed on which day of their raid so that the following guild can plan for respawn accordingly.

If it seems the bulk of the dragons were killed on the last day or last 2 days, the rotation guilds may allow for the next guild in line to postpone the raid to allow for fair respawn. We'd have to consider this on a case-by-case basis dependant on what is killed when.

Example:

Day 1: Aaryonar dead
Day 2: nothing dies, lots of tries though
Day 3: nothing dies, lots of tries though
Day 4: Dagarn dies
Day 5: Kreizzen dies.

This would mean hypothetically that Kreizzen would not be spawning until the 5th day of the next guild's turn, the day they should be attempting Vulak, which is unfair.

[Quintall_ML]

Okay, so does that mean you would only go to cleanup rotation if you have proven you can kill every dragon in N ToV, including Vulak?

Something like that could solve that issue of cleanup after your own full spawn.

*looking for mah kudos*

[Sirensa]

Originally posted by Quintall_ML
Okay, so does that mean you would only go to cleanup rotation if you have proven you can kill every dragon in N ToV, including Vulak?

Something like that could solve that issue of cleanup after your own full spawn.

*looking for mah kudos*

YES!

And mark this day on your calendar, by Jove I think he's got it!

*hands Quintall Kudos*

[Quintall_ML]

"Example:

Day 1: Aaryonar dead
Day 2: nothing dies, lots of tries though
Day 3: nothing dies, lots of tries though
Day 4: Dagarn dies
Day 5: Kreizzen dies.

This would mean hypothetically that Kreizzen would not be spawning until the 5th day of the next guild's turn, the day they should be attempting Vulak, which is unfair."

Shouldn't the Cleanup rotation solve this issue for the most part?

Day 6: Cleanup guild enters, kills Back 5
Day 7: Cleanup guild kills Koi, Lady M, Vyemm, Vulak if possible.
Day 8: Aary respawns, next Full Spawn rotation guild is up.

Allowing a Guild a pause of up to 2 days before beginning their kills, would allow them to get Vulak and crew back up by day 5 of actually fighting:

Day 8 Aary respawns, full rotation guild pauses
Day 9 Full rotation guild pauses
Day 10 Aary dies
Day 11 Fesh and Dag die
Day 12 Lord K dies
Day 13 Back 5 die
Day 14 Koi, Lady M, Vyemm, Vulak spawn, all but Vulak die
Day 15 Vulak clause invoked, Vulak dies
Day 16 Nothin alive
Day 17 Aary respawns, Full rotation guild takes day for spawn consolidation
Day 18 More pause for consolidation
Day 19 Aary, Fesh, Dar die
Day 20 Lord K dies, drake farming
Day 21 Back 5 die
Day 22 Koi, Lady M, Vyemm die
Day 23 Vulak dies (5 day clearing)


3 weeks, 2 days = 3 guilds, all spawns dead, hopefully.

Just following the thought process.


*Marks the day*

[Sirensa]

Hrm, ok Quintall, I think you and I are on the same page.

Now does it seem a fair way to rotate?

Any other guilds able to weed through that and make sense of it?

[Rohaise]

It seems to me that there are just too many issues with a < 7 day raid regulation, and innumerable conditions that would have to be covered.

Just look at all the crazy examples you all are coming up with. And you can be sure that reality is going to be even stranger than this fiction.

Just make it a blanket 7 day raid limit.

No "cleanup crew".

5 day limits, kicking guilds out (how? how do you tell 40+ people "thx for the 5 days of hard work, now we have to gtfo for guild03 to take over" - we know how well that will go over), cleanup crews capability of screwing up spawns times even more, are all going to add a lot of variables that are just going to create more tension and arguments in the future.

Make it 7 days.

There is then no question of respawns.

Guilds that can clear it in 3 or 4 days can then pick a single block of 3-4 days without having to drag out a several day long raid waiting on respawns of initial and clean-up raids. E.G. if the previous guild took 5 or more days to kill their mobs, you don't have to run in right away and sit on your butts waiting on respawns. You can do more useful things while mobs are respawning and then just go in the last 4 of your 7 days.

You can then kill Aaryonar in whatever order you want without messing up other guilds. You can start in the back, front, or even sideways if you have the means without anyone dictating exactly how you must spend your fun time.

Emergency patches will have less chance of screwing you out of a Vulak - you'd get at least 4 days on one end to clear the zone.

I know we're all heated up about this zone right now, but really there's only 2-3 guilds capable of progressing in here, and I'm not sure how many of us want to be tied down and committed to doing a zone for 4-5 days with a 10 day break in between before going right back. Add in the proposed "cleanup crews" and you're spending half of your online days in that area.

With a 7 day duration we can be more casual about this. No rigid rules that can't possibly cover every abnormality and will lead to even further arguments.

You'd get 7 days. Period. No ifs, ands, or buts. No hassle of cleanup crews. No emergency patch arguments. No fuzzy match about respawns.

This even allows us to do the unthinkable - actually "schedule" raids on a calendar in advance for a change instead of being worried about rotations putting you on the spot with unknown spawn times.

We can have blocks of 7 days scheduled as far in advance as we want. Mon-Sun? Sat-Fri? Wed-Tues? However we want it, we can set it up and our members will be happy that they can actually plan this raid in advance on a certain week.

I think anything other than a 7 day allowance is just going to cause more problems then it's worth.

I'm willing to forego an extra day or two of lost phat lewtz to make this easier on all of us, and all of our guildmembers.


One thing I would add to this proposition, however, is that to retain your spot in this rotation, you must kill Aaryonar, from the front, on your first time, and then once every 3 times thereafter. This ensures guilds aren't just going in and farming some of the easy dragons, but are making a serious attempt at a clearing.

[Yendii]

I've read this tread twice and still can't get my VCR to stop blinking 12:00 :(

[Andaas]

Long term scheduling = bad

Lets not make a raid calendar, blech.

[Baramos1]

I agree with Roh.

The best type of rules, are simple rules. Too many "what-ifs", caveats, potential for arguing in the above.

I can guarantee that arguments are sure to break out.

The easiest thing to do, is to keep it simple. Rezz pointed out "general VS specific" rules for NToV and I think he's spot on.

7 days seems fair enough. It's not really going to slow us down. Give folks a week in, then 2 weeks off to do other things - that's fine by me.

The best part of that is, we don't have to keep an eye on what's being killed, when, where how. Soon as the 7 days is up we just pop the next guild in line in, and all is well.

In addition this doesn't give some guilds the obvious weekend advantage over others, which will surely create some hassles later.

I much prefer this relaxed, almost hand-shake style of NToV agreement more than something that has tons of rules, is bound to cause conflict and more editing and amendments, and will up the volume of tension rather than reduce it.

Baramos

[Sirensa]

I prefer the 5-day plan.

It encourages people to get in and get done what they can and make room for someone else, without wasting dragons.

Having Vulak remain up because some people are too slow and leave 1-3 dragons up per week is wasteful. In the long run, that WILL cause problems.

I can't see ANY guild that has successfully cleared NToV now or in the near future sit idly by and watch Vulak rot week after week because some guilds just cannot get it together.

[Andaas]

The intent of reducing the raid time to less than 7 days was to encourage haste in clearing the zone (the more haste, the more spawns for everyone). This haste will indeed cause some guilds to lose out, and it will also give other guilds an opportunity to gain.

The secondary rotation would not be used just to cover clean-up, this rotation could also be used for the 2 or 3 day period pre-patch (where a guild will choose to wait for patch day for their raid to start in lieu of taking a short rotation slot).

Also, what are we going to do when a guild aborts a raid short of the 7-day scheduled time? Leave the dragons sitting idle while the next guild waits their turn? Seems like a waste to me.

If necessary, we could extend the 7-day raid period a bit longer than the 1st ever NToV raid for newer guilds in the rotation. 7-days is more than enough time to clear that zone, even with inexperience, however, allowing a guild two 7-day raids would be fair just as well.

[Baramos1]

This, to me, is the clincher, where Roh said:

5 day limits, kicking guilds out (how? how do you tell 40+ people "thx for the 5 days of hard work, now we have to gtfo for guild03 to take over" - we know how well that will go over), cleanup crews capability of screwing up spawns times even more, are all going to add a lot of variables that are just going to create more tension and arguments in the future.

===============

For example, imagine Hoss having some issues with getting enough people online to complete their raid, DaoC suction, some bad luck, whatever.

ML, the well-known "rules" people, say hey, time for you guys to leave. Rules are rules. Meanwhile, Friday is tomorrow, and you know damn good and well you'll be able to finish up, but you're hamstringed by the rules. You want to get some sort of extension, but ML is pissed off because you made us do it the last time, so we say no.

Etc. Etc.

I can see a raft of problems on the horizon coming up in a 5 day scenario, that are all obliterated by a 7 day scenario.

I don't think worry about the "waste" of a Vulak here and there merits the kind of arguing that we've already seen the worst of on this forum.

I'm not going to post on this anymore, however, because I'm in the middle of a RL issue, and don't have the energy to spend.

Consider this my 2 cents, and whatever Roh and you all work out is fine with me.

Baramos

[Baramos1]

Oh, one last thing.

If we can't get some traction on this particular point, please try and work out a compromise.

Maybe there is a scenario where we can try a little of both, and give both ideas a trial.

Baramos

[Andaas]

Originally posted by Baramos1
ML, the well-known "rules" people, say hey, time for you guys to leave. Rules are rules. Meanwhile, Friday is tomorrow, and you know damn good and well you'll be able to finish up, but you're hamstringed by the rules. You want to get some sort of extension, but ML is pissed off because you made us do it the last time, so we say no.

This is Hoss we're talking about... it'd be more like:

Hrm, tomorrow is Saturday and only Vulak is left, hope we get enough people to log in for it.... Saturday evening rolls around and /who all Hoss shows "5" people logged in. Sooo... think we can do Vulak with no warriors, 2 clerics, 1 druid, and a rogue?

In the end though, I would hope that things would balance out fairly well. If Hoss was to have a bad raid and/or bad timing for our typically poor weekend turnouts, then we lose out, but make up for it by cleaning up after another guild that didn't/couldn't clear the zone.

[Sirensa]

Ok, so does what I posted in the very first post of this thread seem to work?

Is it something we could try for 1-2 rotation cycles (3-6 weeks)and then adjust as needed? And I do feel some discussion is warranted after we try it out to see if either: yes, it works great or no, we can improve it here.

I would think that is fair compromise for now. Yes?

Rotation currently:
ML (up currently)
Vindication
Hoss

[Rohaise]

I like the first post.

If I understand it correctly, it means 7 days per guild per turn.

If any dragon is killed on day #7, the next guild in line has the option of waiting one day before starting their raid.

If a patch happens, emergency or otherwise, tough luck (or wonderful luck depending on your progress).

Hoss had 7 days, and a patch.

ML had 7 days, and a patch.

I'm sure Vindication will get 7 days and a patch someday too.

Say what you want though, imo a patch is worse than no patch. Patch forced us to start over. Sure, we got a couple dragons twice, but it didn't allow us enough time to finish in our split-7-day allotment.

A patch gives you extra low-end dragons, but puts you at risk for Vulak. There's pros and cons.

[Andaas]

We will get our first test of how respawn vs. patch schedules will work out next week, as a patch has been scheduled for Tuesday the 23rd.

I suppose Hoss will have to wait to see the status of Vulak this week to see what we will do... regardless, I will figure that at least Sevelak, Cekenar, and Zlexak will not have a chance of respawning before the patch, so scheduling our raid for post-patch would be the most likely, otherwise we are selling ourselves short.

Of course, this leaves us with rotting dragons over the weekend... which was why we discussed the secondary rotation (for clean-up/leftovers), that several people here have shot down. Perhaps the reality of the situation will help everyone figure out how we can handle this to everyone's satisfaction.

Personally, I would propose 2 simple rotations. The primary rotation would be for 5 day (after October) consecutive raids, this is your guilds "main" NToV raid where you intend to kill all spawns. The secondary rotation will include all NToV rotation guilds, and will be in place to clean up any leftover dragons from an abandoned "main" raid. The secondary rotation will only consist of 1 raid day (you can get all you can eat in 1 day, but the zone is not raided on the 7th day after the previous "main" raid started). A secondary rotation spot that is picked up to clean up because of an upcoming patch has free reign to clear the zone up until the patch (ie, 4 days if thats how much time there is).

It is important that both rotations be treated 100% independantly. This means that if ML is scheduled for both the next "main" raid and "clean up" raid, and a patch is scheduled so that their "main" raid would only have 2 days before the patch (and they opt to wait), that ML gets the "clean-up" raid pre-patch, and starts their "main" raid post-patch. This will happen for everyone eventually, so whining about the first guild it happens to is silly.

Regardless of if we cut the raid time down to 5 days (or 4 days) or not, there is still a need for a secondary rotation to cover a shortened raid period due to patches where the next guild opts to wait until the patch to begin their raid - there is no reason to let dragons rot with the patch.

[Baramos1]

Andaas -

I don't really see any reason why you shouldn't go in and whack the Dragons in ToV N this weekend, and take your full "turn" after patch.

It's stupid to let dragons rot.

I don't see any reason we can't handshake the "rotters" in some way.

Let's just do a 7 day thing, and then hey, let's do something really drastic and talk about anything left over.

Why don't you find out what's left up, then just say, if no one minds, we're gonna go kill X, Y, Z. Whatever.

I think there's way too much worrying about loot, and who's getting it, going on, and that having a bunch of rules is just going to be a nuisance with regard to respawns.

ML just got out of there. You guys haven't been in for awhile.

Knock yourselves out.

Bara

[Baramos1]

Can we all agree then, that the 7 day rule in ToV N is a good one?

Are we getting along well enough to handshake the rotters? Or do we want to formalize that?

I'd like to close this, this week.

Inputs?

Baramos