The Frostreaver Campaign – Part 4: Building a Foundation
The Frostreaver Campaign
The story of Frostraiders' raid progression on EverQuest's most unusual Time-Locked Progression server.
Winning a few raids is one thing. Building a raid force capable of winning them consistently is something else entirely.
By the time Frostraiders had established itself on Frostreaver, the guild had already demonstrated that it could defeat raid encounters. The next challenge was considerably more complicated: how do you equip an entire and constantly growing raid force?
This was one of the defining problems created by Frostreaver's unique ruleset. With Classic, Kunark and Velious available from the beginning, there was no shortage of powerful equipment to pursue. At the same time, Frostraiders was not a static group of players. New characters were reaching raid level, new players were joining the guild and established raiders were continuing to improve.
The guild therefore needed more than a handful of exceptionally equipped characters. It needed depth.
The First Priority: Getting Everyone Raid Ready
The early official raids in the Plane of Hate served a very specific purpose. Frostraiders was not looking to make Hate a permanent guild farming destination. The objective was to get the raid force out of its levelling equipment and establish a basic standard that would allow the guild to move on to encounters offering substantially better rewards.
Hate was therefore a stepping stone rather than a destination.
Once that initial standard had been achieved, there was little reason to devote the guild's main raid nights to content that had already served its purpose. The organised raid force needed to move up the equipment ladder.
That did not mean that Hate became completely irrelevant. Players could still organise unofficial two- or three-group raids into the Plane of Hate. These smaller expeditions could provide useful equipment, help newer players improve their characters and allow members to continue making use of older content without taking an official guild raid slot away from more important progression targets.
The distinction was between content that was still useful and content that deserved an official raid night. Hate could remain useful without remaining a central part of Frostraiders' formal progression.
Progression Happened in More Than One Place
The same principle applied to other parts of the game. Not every equipment upgrade required the entire guild to assemble for a raid.
Skyshrine armour was particularly important, but much of that progression could be pursued through group play. Players could work towards their class armour and improve their characters without consuming a valuable official raid night, while the organised raid force concentrated on targets that required a full raid.
This created an efficient division of labour. Individual players could continue progressing through group content, unofficial raids and armour quests, while the official guild raids concentrated on equipment and encounters that offered the greatest benefit to the raid force as a whole.
Kael Drakkal Remained Important
While Skyshrine armour could largely be pursued through group play, Kael Drakkal remained an important guild raid destination. Giant armour and the other equipment available from Kael continued to provide meaningful upgrades for a growing raid force.
This was particularly important because Frostraiders was not a static group. More players were reaching the level at which they could raid, new members were joining the guild and existing players were continuing to improve their characters. There was therefore a constant demand for useful equipment.
Kael was consequently not simply a stepping stone that the guild completed and abandoned. It remained part of the guild's ongoing gearing programme even as Frostraiders progressed into more difficult Velious content.
This illustrates an important feature of Frostraiders' strategy: different parts of the game were being used for different purposes at the same time. Group content could develop individual characters, while guild raids concentrated on equipment that could not be acquired efficiently elsewhere.
Gear the Guild, Not Just the Character
The objective was not to make a small number of players exceptionally powerful. It was to bring the vast majority of the raid force up to a reliable standard.
Players did not all need identical equipment, nor did every character need to be completely optimised. What mattered was creating enough depth that the raid force as a whole could perform effectively.
That distinction became increasingly important as the guild grew. Every new player reaching raid level represented another character who needed equipment. Every established raider who improved represented another increase in the strength of the raid force.
Frostreaver's increased loot drops made this possible at a much faster rate than would normally be expected on a traditional TLP.
There was simply more equipment available to distribute.
Instead of gearing being a process that necessarily took months for every new member, the guild could bring players towards the established standard considerably faster.
When an Item Does More Than Improve Statistics
Frostraiders also learned that equipment had to be judged by more than its basic statistics.
One of the first priorities was the plate leg armour for clerics, because it provided a clickable healing effect. An item that gave a cleric an additional healing tool could contribute to the survival of an entire raid rather than simply improving the statistics of one character.
The same principle applied to other class-specific equipment. For Caradawc, his Wolf Caller's breastplate and boots provided clickable Stamina and Dexterity buffs which stacked with Focus of Spirit. The value of those items therefore extended beyond their ordinary armour statistics.
This was an important part of the guild's developing gearing philosophy. The most important upgrade was not necessarily the item with the largest numerical improvement. Sometimes it was the item that gave the raid a new capability.
New Raiders Meant the Job Never Ended
There was another complication. The gearing process never truly ended.
As Frostraiders became more successful, more players wanted to raid. Existing guild members reached level 60. New recruits arrived. Characters that had previously been unable to participate in the highest-level content became potential raiders.
This created a constant tension between two objectives. The guild needed to continue improving its established core while simultaneously bringing newer players up to the required standard.
On a conventional TLP, this can become an enormous burden. Limited raid drops mean that a guild may spend raid night after raid night distributing the same handful of desirable items while newer players remain far behind the established core.
Frostreaver's increased loot frequency changed that equation.
The larger number of drops meant that equipment could be distributed across a much wider section of the guild. The result was not simply a few exceptionally geared characters, but a deeper raid force in which more players could contribute effectively.
From One Raid Force to Two
Eventually Frostraiders reached the point where split raids became a practical tool for progression.
A split raid needs to be understood correctly. The two forces operate simultaneously, so an individual player can only participate in one of them. The purpose is not to give every raider two attendance opportunities; it is to allow the guild to field two capable raid forces and create multiple loot pools from the same raid opportunity.
This is also important when interpreting the guild's attendance figures. OpenDKP can record the two simultaneous forces as separate raid records, but a player such as Caradawc cannot physically be present in both. His attendance therefore has to be judged against the DKP raid opportunities that were actually available to him.
For the guild itself, however, the benefit was substantial. Once enough players were properly equipped and enough experienced players could lead independent forces, a single raid opportunity could generate considerably more equipment for the guild.
More equipment meant more players could be brought up to standard.
More equipped players made future split raids easier.
And the cycle continued.
The Foundation Takes Shape
By this stage, Frostraiders was no longer simply trying to survive the transition into Velious. It was building the infrastructure required to operate successfully within it.
Hate had provided the initial bridge from levelling equipment into raid equipment. Skyshrine armour could be pursued through group play. Kael Drakkal remained a valuable official raid target for Giant armour and other upgrades. Important click-effect items were prioritised because of their value to the raid. New players could be brought towards the established standard more quickly because Frostreaver provided a much greater supply of loot.
The result was a raid force that was becoming stronger not just at the top, but throughout its depth.
That was the real foundation.
And once the majority of the guild had reached that standard, the strategic question would change again. It would no longer be enough simply to acquire better equipment. Frostraiders would have to decide which pieces of content were worth pursuing, which keys needed to be obtained and which parts of Velious would form the next stage of the campaign.
The next major objective would be one of the clearest examples of that philosophy: Sleeper's Tomb.
The Frostreaver Campaign
- Part 1 – Why Frostreaver Was Different
- Part 2 – Building Frostraiders
- Part 3 – First Steps into Raiding
- Part 4 – Building a Foundation
- Part 5 – Gearing for Capability
- Part 6 – Keys Before Kills
- Part 7 – The Point of No Return
- Part 8 – Choosing the Right Battles
- Part 9 – The Economics of Loot
- Part 10 – Lessons from Frostraiders
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