IDOC'ing 101: Everything you need to know about IDOC's

HellGuy

HellGuy

Adept
Hi there,

I could not decide where to post this thread at first place. it has suggestions, it has guidance but I wanted to reach more players, so I decided to go with general discussion.

I wanted to share my knowledge so that more players would be encouraged to hunt for treasures of IDOC's.

What is IDOC?
IDOC - stands for : In Danger Of Collapsing
IDOC is a player organised event, once they quit or decide to leave a house behind (*), they leave their fortune behind to become publicly available with a location, date and time. It is their goodbye ceremony and the more fortune they had, the bigger the ceremony and the bloodshed are, for their honor! (and for our greed...)

What should I do to join the party?
First of all, you should see the signs of a party, literally. Every house has a sign, read them during your adventures. But if you want to be a big game hunter (**) then you should have a game plan. Decide your zone on map and take your time reading signs there. Clicking on signs can be automated by a script (***). Houses takes weeks to go down. So you don't have to run that much as other server activities.

What information does signs provide?
Sign has 2 lines, first line show the house name. Second line will be one of below.
1. Like New
2. Slightly Worn
3. Somewhat Worn
4. Fairly Worn
5. Greatly Worn
6. In Danger Of Collapsing

Second line shows the party time. Each state shows how recently house has been refreshed. You would consider a sign as an invitation after the 4th state. Time frames goes as below.

4. Fairly Worn (6 days to stage 5)
5. Greatly Worn (6 days to stage 6)
6. In Danger Of Collapsing (6 hours to collapsing)

You figured there will be a party, what is next?
You need to figure out the exact time of it. Each stage has exact timer and it starts as soon as stage changes. What you need to do is fire your kindling and camp there, wait for sign to change and check your Rolex (75k plat coins). This can be automated as well (***).

So I know where and when the party is, is that all?
Yes, definitely! Make your arrangements, call your comrades. If the loot looks good but you got work, take a sick day off the work or set your alarm clock to wake up at mid night for the party (LOOT)! In my experience there might be loads of competition for little loot and also there might be no competition at all for 2-4 million gold worth loot. I know some guilds (****) are dominant at accepting party invitations but I have seen so many others where party was so death, no single soul showed up and I had to take burden of carrying millions worth stuff out alone!

What are the pros and cons?
IDOC is the one of the oldest and perfectly working system. It is not random, completely public, can be foreseen. it has no down sides and have been working for decades. You would never know what you are going to get out of a small plaster house and you should not be surprised when you see a tower being completely empty.

You said there were suggestions in this post?
Since it has been under objective lately and observations was that guilds dominating the parties and parties wanted to be more crowded I would recommend below changes before taking any other serious actions on well working system before the broken adventure system. IDOC's are not random on time, are not hidden and are always open to competition. Unlike on foot areas where tamers, who had spent millions of gold and hours of time, are gods.

1) Introduce IDOC system better and give more information to new players so they would keep their eyes open for party signs! (I am doing my contribution with my best at this point.)
2) Publish all used scripts or usable scripts on forums. (*****)
3) Making IDOC area no cut zone for short period of time 30 mins before and after the collapse (60 mins in total) would encourage more reds to be involved. Also this area should be no young player zone as well, just like champion spawn areas.
4) Do not make players feel like your amusement dolls by making instant changes at random. Since this shard is known to be "Dedicated professional staff with a mature growing community".

If you managed reading so far I really appreciate your time. I am looking forward to read comments and to have your additions to my guide if I missed anything important.

With my best regards.


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* - I used to believe and say every IDOC = a player already left but that is not the exact truth
** - SC:BW
*** - I would have shared the script here as well but no thief share a stealing macro, no alchemist share an one key pot throwing macro. Dig deep in the google mine and you will fine the vein!
**** - I might be involved with the best one.
***** - This should cover all other other scripts that are in use. This would provide equal ground for everyone.
 
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T

TheGooch

Master
+1. I'm just waiting for the "the few players who have idocing under wraps do not outweigh the greater needs of these so called newer players joining bullshit, blah blah, blah blah".
 
Violence

Violence

Grandmaster
A good beginners guide, though I doubt it will change anything. I would contribute and add my own methodology, but it's probably for naught at this point.

Shane making knee jerk changes to the game the one time he logs in shitfaced per week > people who know how to IDOC.
 
Shane

Shane

Administrator
Staff member
This is great.
I've had so many long long talks with many people and groups/guilds about the idoc situation.

I really don't want to change how it is, but it makes me think that there's just a lack of education with the system.
Halygon just wrote a document up with some great idea's.

I don't think it needs changing as much as we just need to educate people on how profitable it can be, and also exactly how it works.
 
S

shinapova

Apprentice
Hello Shane, if you want more players to get involved in idoc, I reckon some small changes could be made, here is my suggestion:

[1] Make the timer random -- so players need to decide if the idoc is worth spending time fighting/waiting for it, big guilds might not be at small houses, and solo/new players would have a better chance to loot them.

[2] Don't allow players to use timer script/macros -- so if you want the loot, you have to "play" the game, not just gate and zerg in 3 mins before the house falls, it takes little risk to gate your reds in when you know when the house is gonna fall (players who get killed wouldn't rez and come back since the loots are gone.)
 
Derwolf

Derwolf

Grandmaster
shinapova said:
Hello Shane, if you want more players to get involved in idoc, I reckon some small changes could be made, here is my suggestion:

[1] Make the timer random -- so players need to decide if the idoc is worth spending time fighting/waiting for it, big guilds might not be at small houses, and solo/new players would have a better chance to loot them.

[2] Don't allow players to use timer script/macros -- so if you want the loot, you have to "play" the game, not just gate and zerg in 3 mins before the house falls, it takes little risk to gate your reds in when you know when the house is gonna fall (players who get killed wouldn't rez and come back since the loots are gone.)
Click to expand...

1. no one did idocs on random timers except for people that play uo 8-12 hours a day and have no lives irl. It was the same group at every static idoc, the guys with most time in irl to spend on uo win, having static timers gives everyone a fair shot, if you have committed a 3-5 man group to idocing and they have the knowledge they will be successful.

2. You can kill timers and the best idoc groups will always use a tracker to routinely clear out timers. If you aren't committed and idocing half ass you are going to get half ass results
 
Derwolf

Derwolf

Grandmaster
Shane said:
This is great.
I've had so many long long talks with many people and groups/guilds about the idoc situation.

I really don't want to change how it is, but it makes me think that there's just a lack of education with the system.
Halygon just wrote a document up with some great idea's.

I don't think it needs changing as much as we just need to educate people on how profitable it can be, and also exactly how it works.
Click to expand...

its like of education + endless content, if i was a pvmer i wouldn't bother with idocs because i would just do fafnir, arch, champ spawns, rdas, warlock, week long invasions, etc. You have to keep some content in for pure idocers, we do make up a % of the player base :/

imo lets have idocers share the knowledge, keep timers the same, and watch chaos break out. I think if you have 4 idoc guilds thats a sign of a healthy server, atm we have 3.
 
drinn

drinn

Grandmaster
Shane said:
I don't think it needs changing as much as we just need to educate people on how profitable it can be, and also exactly how it works.
Click to expand...

I would like to point out that it is not always profitable as others might think. Sometimes you find a treasure, but pretty often its just trash, or worse: empty containers. Like said, it needs a lot of work, if you want to succeed and get to as many IDOCs as possible. Yet you have to deal with others, so its not always successful. Time-consuming work, when daily it can be 8 IDOCs.

So no wonder some IDOCers get burnout after like 3 months.
 
Young Star

Young Star

Grandmaster
Ive always suggested just a small window, 20 minutes. That at least lets timers to still get really close but not so much that they swoop in and out within a matter of minutes.
 
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