Abusing transfers for server firsts

[hal9k]

There are heavily-geared raid guilds transferring to servers just long enough to farm server firsts. They then move on and repeat. On my server, long hoped-for Hammernell firsts will never be accomplished by any of our local, striving guilds, because there is only one server first and all the bosses were completed last night by a brand new xfer guild. That strikes me as very said, and exploitative on the part of the invading guild. It also strikes me that Trion seems very immature in MMO experience. They are often pushing out major changes, or too many changes in one patch, that have serious unforeseen consequences. I applaud the intention to serve the needs of the player base, but in practice they need to emulate established procedures. Test your changes more thoroughly and think ahead more. It's much easier to avoid a mistake than correct it. Here's a simple suggestion that other MMOs have followed as an example: only allow one transfer per toon, and limit transfers to same-type servers (pve to pve, pvp to pvp, rp to rp, etc). Why ignore what has been proven to work in the past and expose yourself to these kinds of problems? Ego? Ignorance? Over-eagerness to please?

[Ceveron]

Does it really matter who gets what on a server first? Sort of like screaming "first!" In a comments section?

[Lande]

Does it really matter who gets what on a server first? Sort of like screaming "first!" In a comments section?

Can't speak for the OP, however my home shard just got a big-name guild transfer that will do nothing but lower the level of maturity of the shard, simply to get those shard firsts.

[Flynch]

I'd have thought they would have locked Server firsts to character rather than server. But I guess that's not the case. Bit of a shame!

[Loxy41]

You would think there would be some block in place to stop players from getting firsts. Something like a 2 week cooldown until firsts can be achieved. Personally I couldn't give two do dars who gets first. I'm not that childish and sad but whatever floats yah boat. Its a wide and varied world we live in.

[BrianMorin]

How would you suggest fixing this in a way that isn't worse than the original problem? (Consider unintended consequences.)

[Skidrow Bro]

How would you suggest fixing this in a way that isn't worse than the original problem? (Consider unintended consequences.)

Couldn't server firsts be saved to accounts per character?

[Swordfishy]

How would you suggest fixing this in a way that isn't worse than the original problem? (Consider unintended consequences.)

Don't allow them any shard firsts for a few weeks while on a new server? That seems reasonable.

[Lande]

How would you suggest fixing this in a way that isn't worse than the original problem? (Consider unintended consequences.)

I agree with the waiting period. Make it a couple of weeks, or even a month. It would give native guilds a good warning that they better get a move on, rather than allowing a stealth server transfer to bag the shard firsts the night they transfer.

[SaintAvalon]

I agree this is ridiculous, why have server firsts if they mean nothing. I think if they hop server the reward should be removed.

Boom, problem solved.

[BrianMorin]

Couldn't server firsts be saved to accounts?

Currently they're stored as a big list in the shard database that looks something like this:
<player> <guild> <what they did> <date stamp>

Kind of need to be that way so we have an easy way to look up if something has been done before and we can quickly dump the list in our data export process.

I guess we could store every first you've gotten in your character and give you only one crack at it? But that still wouldn't cover boss kills because when someone gets a first on a kill we record the first guy who happens to get to the database (because it's almost always a guild group, guild credit is good enough.) It would take a bunch more re rigging to store off the entire party/raid.

[EranB]

Who cares about server firsts?

[Redjuice]

My suggestion - Server firsts only activate when raid teams get the achievement for last boss of a raid. If you finish Hammerknell, and get server first and the achievement, then transfer to another shard and finish Hammerknell, the new server's "first kill" won't happen because the achievements for finishing the raid have already been given to the raid members. No awarding of achievement for finishing the raid = no possibility of getting "shard first".

If they replace one member who hasn't finished the raid to try make getting the achievement count as a server first on a new shard? Just make the game have to count 20 x achievements given to the raid team before it awards server first. Or as many achievements as there are players in the raid party incase the raid is less than 20 people.

Make - <player> <guild> <Achievement for finishing the raid> <date stamp>
Then - Run a check that if all players in the raid group got the above, then give Shard First.

[BrianMorin]

Don't allow them any shard firsts for a few weeks while on a new server? That seems reasonable.

So if you move your guild, progression kills don't count in the official record?

That could be just as unfair.

[Azlin]

A 30 day waiting period sounds fair to me, for Guilds and Individual characters.