Wanted to collect some feedback from the community. I've heard concerns from multiple players now regarding gear sharing in the damage range thread. While we do not permit temporary trading of gear, the issue is that we have no way to really prove someone is the true owner of a piece of gear, and it's a bit fuzzy sometimes whether something falls under a temporary trade vs full inheritance vs a "union". Let's use this thread to discuss this problem publicly. I would like to focus on the Union rule specifically first, and I've added a poll about it. Here is the Union rule as it is currently written: Spoiler: Unions A union is defined as a group of two or more people that share a common set of equip(s). Each set of equips will only be allowed to be posted by one player in the thread. If multiple players from the same union post with the same gear, then ALL ranges using that set of equips will be removed until either ownership is made clear or it is made clear who specifically owns this set of gear. In your post, please tag all members of your union. Spoiler: Example Player A and Player B share a set of glove/cape/shoe. If Player A posts their range with this set of equips, then Player B is NOT allowed to post their range with the same set of equips, even though they partially own it. In Player A’s post, they will tag Player B. If the players are inquired about it, it must be clear from every party on ownership. I would like to ask the community: should we get rid of the union rule and just disallow it entirely? In other words, if you have split ownership of some gear with multiple people, *none* of you can use that to submit your range. You need to have full 100% ownership of *all* the gear you're using to submit your range. Why? I think the rule can lead to kind of a loophole where anyone can justify temporary trading of gear as just being in a union. I think getting rid of it would simplify our rules and maybe lead to less controversy. I would guess truly splitting ownership of gear is a really rare thing, so it's not too harmful to disallow it. That's based on my personal experiences, so let me know if you disagree! Let me know via your replies and votes in poll! I will do my best to try to make sense of what the community wants and work towards it
First thing, I really appreciate your motivation to make the thread something the community collectively agrees with! I think You're doing a great job so far, and this is a great idea. As for my vote and explanation, I think the damage range thread should simply display the true output potential of a character. It shouldn't be a measure of who worked harder, or who deserves it more, but a showing of what is possible at the top 0.01%! With that being said, I also believe the thread should reflect the kind of power the character is capable of having the majority of the time. If the rule were to be removed, nothing stops top players from lending every one of their friends gear to post with. Which is why I believe the current union rule is a good balance, and should stay as it is.
entries that are unions should be marked as such on the lists in order to remain fair, then its up to us to decide if we want to disregard those posts or not. i don't think we should remove the union rule as people would still do it anyway.
To me the question is a little deeper than that, and it's this: What exactly is the purpose of the range thread? The answer is a little individual for each player, but the way a large portion of the endgame players on the server perceive it, it's supposed to be the closest thing to a fair gear competition, to see who is the top player of each class. Outsiders can think the thread is merely used to see the maximum potential of each class in the game, but it's simply not true. People who hold top spots are often competitive, and they want it to be as fair of a competition as possible, and people who come and take it from them with gear that clearly isn't theirs are frowned upon. Is the anger from some players justified? according to some players the answer is no because those players are playing by the thread's rules. Through the years, the union rule allowed for some really nasty loopholes, the most common example would go like this: 1) Have strong friends/guild mates who are not on the thread. 2) If a member of that guild/friend group wants to retain a spot, they just borrow that unused gear and say it's a union. 3) If anyone says anything, it's allowed after all, just say you use that gear sometimes and it's a union, who can prove otherwise? you will just look like a clown who takes things too seriously calling it out. For the reasons I mentioned above, I think you entirely misunderstood the rule, it actually means the exact opposite. If we eliminate the union rule, and state that the gear you use for the range thread must strictly belong to the player posting, there will of course still be ways to cheat - it's a nightmare to enforce such thread and it will never be fully possible. However, it will maybe not completely eliminate the problem, but it does create an extra layer of effort to cheat, and it would make people who do that cheaters, and nobody wants to be the one caught lying. For years players did not have an issue abusing those loopholes because it's technically allowed, so it makes them feel justified to do that. What I personally think about the range thread in general and what direction it should take: Since were lacking any official ranking system like DPS charts, our 2 best ways to compare players/classes are: 1) Range thread - comparing players gears. 2) Krex DPS thread - comparing classes with no gear limit, trying to understand what's the strongest class in the game. The range thread should remain the closest thing we can possible do to fair competition, and that's why I support removing the union rule, which led to literally nothing good, only loopholes. If it was up to me I would take some extra steps to make sure gears from top 3 in each class are actually theirs, and maybe that way it will encourage more competitive people to post, though I understand that might be going a bit far and will not be a popular opinion. Finally I want to thank @anglerfish1 for maintaining that thread, there's a reason people always threw the towel through the years, range thread always causes drama and people take it way too serious (I'm guilty of that too sometimes) and you've been doing an amazing job and staying open minded to suggestions and criticism.
You’re right, I read the original post too quickly. But I did understand that there would be players that want your solution. I had it split up like: Remove rules entirely, keep rules the same, remove rules for stricter ones. With that being said, I definitely need to provide a defence for my claim, relative to that. I believe that stricter rules would be a fine solution, but think that it is unrealistic to maintain. It requires the thread owner to frequently check in with players from many time zones and activity levels (Or have them reach out, and have numerous dm’s to look through). Furthermore, the players who have been dishonest about their union are likely to just be dishonest about their ownership. If players have strong guild mates who aren’t posting (like you stated), stricter rules do not fix the issue. The same applies to unused gear. If no one has claimed “ownership,” what stops a player from saying it does belong to them, and they don’t have it atm, or they just use it for long periods of time. Ultimately, stricter rules are a perfect case scenario solution, that I think is a great idea, but isn’t all that feasible.
How about asking players to explain the source of every equipment > 30b. Remove temporary trades. Keep inheritance (as long as the staff finds it legit) and union (allow only 1 of the players to post). But reading the 5-year-old post, there mush have been many trade/inheritance/union which were not made public. Maybe a *New* New Official Range thread that only allow solo assets... What I think about the incidence that caused the whole issue: if a player has access to the godly gears inherited, and he/she/they/etc. is using them everyday to auf/VL/NT/etc., I don't see why this couldn't be a line on the server's range thread.
