I suck at editing posts for readability so bear with me as I make live adjustments to the formatting
I would like to take a few minutes to discuss something a little different from what we experienced in icbt2… and what we can do to make it a better experience for everyone.
Icbt2 World Boss (henceforth referred to as “WB”) hunting typically involved having specific timers that were confidential to specific players for means of hoarding the boss to themselves. I even took my place in a few of those Ella spawns with a vow of secrecy on those timers (I wasn’t in this vid though! lol just for reference that this hush-hush WB was in fact in the game but kept largely secret from the community… by the community).
While playing in the icbt2 I could understand the benefits to keeping those timers under wraps; the more people that knew the more players there would be contesting your right to drops and the more drops that (weren’t yours or a friend’s) would be in circulation thus cutting profits. At the time this felt acceptable practice, to keep what we earned to ourselves both in killing and in timer management, but, in hindsight, it is utterly selfish and unbecoming.
Now, I’m not saying if you hoarded timers with your guild or network of friends that you are a bad person or anything. I mean this was the environment we created and we played by the rules we made for ourselves. What I am saying though is it doesn’t have to be that way going forward; we can change this ourselves by our own practices as well as by raising our voices with how WB loot is distributed to promote a friendlier and more active WB hunting community.
Please click here for a live peek as to how another game’s community handles their WB timers.
The link above is for Aura Kingdom and the timers you see on this mirror are live and maintained by separate dedicated community members and groups who make the edits and calls publicly and promptly. These editors guide all who are participating in-game to the appropriate channel during play and notate on the sheets which bosses do not spawn and which bosses do spawn and their correlating timer. The groups LH and WLG even go so far as to have created separate timer sheets that can be edited publicly by anyone in case they would like to contribute in the absence of a group or to start their own form of timer management.
The sheet you see is for only two WB, both of which are the current end-game WB, and it is promoted to share this information with other players so that they can take part. The editors themselves are a very special kind of hero for the community; everyone honestly thanks them for their efforts because, without them, the boss timers would get horribly wrong and inefficient, and players would be missing out on their chances to participate.
Now, before anything is said, yes, the games are different, as are how they handle WB encounters. The WB in Aura Kingdom are on fixed timers from the time-of-death of the WB, loot is distributed via in-game Mail as a participation reward chest (meaning even if you only got one single hit in on the boss you’ll receive the same reward as the player who chunked its health hardcore), and the bosses themselves are in fixed spawn locations.
Our own ToS doesn’t always have the same spawn location so jumping from channel to channel hunting for these bosses isn’t always ideal… but that isn’t to say it would be impossibru. I’m sure a community such as our own can find a way to make this system work for us as well. My first suggestion for this is that a guild, or two, steps up and forms for the purpose of WB hunting and making the timers public. These players could set up an internal system with each player having recall points to specific spawn locations so that finding these bosses takes minimal time. I would happily join and contribute as well. This guild, or these guilds, as many of you could guess by now would likely be as popular, or more popular, than the “best pve” guilds or the “best pvp” guilds in the game. Both figuratively and literally because this guild would be popular by giving back to the community itself, by being a part of something bigger that has everyone’s best interests in-mind, and for having a reputation of always knowing the scoop on the bosses that matter (at lv600 I’m sure not everyone will care about a lv100 WB spawn so it would likely only require keeping notes on maybe 1-5 total end-game WB events).
What is more is that public timers and public participation, in the current system, intentionally robin hoods these drops from proclaimed elitists who would prefer to keep them to themselves to profit at the expense of your ignorance.
If everyone has access to timers we can expect to see:
More players taking place in the events that come with some bosses with unique requirements which makes for faster spawns.
Faster kills which also translates to faster spawns on next cycles and channels, lowering the total time required to cycle through available bosses and increasing the overall spawn rate on these bosses.
. A more fair environment for receiving drops; more players means each player deals less overall damage before the boss is dead, which allows more players and parties a chance at vying for the top ranks more evenly. A counter to this would be that bursty classes are favored more than steady but higher overall dps classes as the amount of time alive would be lower for the WB with more players participating. (However, should IMC follow suggestions regarding WB loot distrobution based on participation, then we may see a much better scenario where all players who participated are rewarded, similar to how other games handle WB encounters)
More items in circulation. This is due to more players having access to the opportunity for the drops as compared to a small clique who can govern when they release their drops to the market. I.e. no more monopolies on drops. This would, in turn, lower prices overall for these drops allowing all players (hardcore and casual) a more fair and realistic price on the gear they may need.
People will know when they can take a break from the grind without sitting around wasting their time checking dead-ends and fake global calls on spawns. These public timers would become a go-to for many players; “I can grind for an hour but then I need to repair so I can get to the event at Map X in time then grind another two hours” is largely more efficient than “I can grind for an hour but if I want to find a WB then I guess I’ll check every channel of every spawn location and blow my remaining two hours of play time only to likely never find a boss” lol.
I’m sure there are many other benefits to the timers being made public. The negatives largely revolve around an individual or a group’s greed… but even that is due-in-part to how WB loot distribution is handled. It is because of this that I am tagging our staff so that they can witness for themselves the opinions of the players around these bosses and their loot distrobution. I mean, let’s face it, end-game in any game normally involves some form of daily objective and then killing the strongest of whatever you can find. Hunting WB is a very important time sink that many of us were doing even when we reached cap in icbt2, imagine how much more important it can be later at true cap.
So… who is going to help make this happen? =)
Even community managers in games such as AK have contributed to global timer documentation as seen here at portskandia (Myzzrym@aeriagames is shown as a special thanks in contribution/ donations). Although it can be noted that the site just linked does not have the latest WB data and thus LH and WLG maintain the timers as seen in the previous google.doc I posted.
I expect to get a bit of flame from this post as not everyone wants to share their timers… and having a guild or active group that updates these timers publicly will be bad for business for those that hoard their timers. So not everyone who reads this will be excited about the idea of a one-stop site (even if it is just a google.doc) that you can see all the timers and actively participate in more bosses with less time wasted in searching. I really do hope though that IMC will adjust their WB loot distribution to include everyone who participates so that this will be a non-issue going forward. An option to hide other players on-screen (that aren’t in your party) would also immensely help in populated areas and WB encounters.
I don’t want to be alone in documenting and making these timers public although I will still do my best to help everyone as best I can by at least making the most important end-game WB public and accessible. Even if I end up being the only player updating timers =( If we get a group or guild together then we can expand to other WB and channels much more effectively.
If you have read this then it would be appreciated if you could leave a comment, even if it is just a “I could support this idea” or a “wtf scrublord nobody cares” =) Thank you for your input!
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