You know very well that I want to see a change for Dom, but I am happy to see Dom klans perking up again. The true solo gamer – those that will happily play a game as much and as long as a guild/clan based player – is rare. Because of that games that don’t evolve a social network that is useful to enhancing a player’s game generally need to be really expansive to hold player interest.

Perhaps no one else pays attention to how things get pbumed around, but I think you overstate how oppressive the klan situation is outside of the top 2 sometimes 3 brackets – obviously much more so in the top bracket. After all if it was all “horror horror horror!” you would have a much harder time than you do. Whether you are aware or not, I’m sure a lot of players think you are just as much if not more of a problem than BoD. *shrug* You might not be able to medal every week on every character against a big klan, but when you do push into a good position you also don’t have to deal with klan politics and the fact that some klannie is also at the tail end of their loop and expects to work with you, so that suddenly what could have been a sweep is 1 medal.

I’m not saying that validates the abuse that can happen in klan raiding, but for alt laden players rotating alts can be damn near as effective and has an impact on a lot more brackets. I guess my stance at this point is not that any specific method is the source of all problems, it is more that alts give an overwhelming advantage no matter what. We’ll find out if that is correct when the alt limit gets coded.

Btw, I don’t think it is at all the same as your drug dealer scenario. This game is a year old and still feeling it’s way. Dom is more like a drug company doing test runs on new drugs – each area a different new drug that is being tested for compatibility. It is obviously not required of every player, but I think we will end up with the best end product if those who have a certain amount of experience are willing to test it.

We are talking about a game mechanic. Maybe I get too much of the “test it yourself” from card games. I’ve heard a hell of a lot about “broken combos” and learned to take everything with a grain of salt until I’ve played it (or against it) myself. I just think it is a good thing to try the different options, it allows for a different perspective and makes it a lot easier to see where the problems are and what would work as a possible fix.

Almost every week I hear inexperienced players say that the number of scoops earned by experienced solo players is crazy and broken – I know that they just don’t get it yet. I don’t have a better example to try to explain it. I guess the thing is, if only 10 people tried solo raiding and everyone else screamed that it was broken, would it be valid to just accept the word of the people who were howling? I don’t think it should be. I just think things need to be tried and tested by those who will honestly know the difference between using every advantage and a broken mechanic. So, yeah, I think those players with the most experience and the loudest voices have a certain responsibility to know what they are talking about even if it means shooting up in their eyeballs for awhile.

At this point, I’ve raided using every method out there. Some are ridiculously ineffective, some are so highly effective as to be problematic. The same can be said for interruption. No method is a problem until it is paired with a player who can use it well or is willing to exploit an unintended loophole.

As to the gigantic “click for free scoops” klans, the only thing that will solve that is a coding change that will only allow those joined to the raid to hold forums that count.