Castle Ravenloft / No raid please.

[die]

I have been stoked for this Module to go live. I heard that the actual castle will be a raid? Please no, I have been playing this game for a **** long time, I have not raided in a group for years, unless we short man with a few friends. For the love of God don't make this into a raid.

There has not been a raiding community (now be honest) for years, yes occasionally you will see a lfm up for one, but not like the Golden days, when every one gathered out front of reaver or shroud,


Sincerely - Doom

[Arch-Necromancer]

I don't see the problem with it being a raid unless it is made to require extra players because of some dumb quest mechanic (like killing some mini bosses at the same time, or some levers that need to be pulled at the same time).

I would like the raid to be soloable, maybe depending on the number of players in the party when entering the raid the quest could change to have one or more levers that need to be pulled at the same time, one or more mini bosses to be killed at the same time.

I think all quests should have such mechanism and be soloable and require player coordination depending on your party size when entering the quest/raid.

[Jasparion]

I don't see the problem with it being a raid unless it is made to require extra players because of some dumb quest mechanic (like killing some mini bosses at the same time, or some levers that need to be pulled at the same time).

I would like the raid to be soloable, maybe depending on the number of players in the party when entering the raid the quest could change to have one or more levers that need to be pulled at the same time, one or more mini bosses to be killed at the same time.

I think all quests should have such mechanism and be soloable and require player coordination depending on your party size when entering the quest/raid.

Yes, what the game needs more than ever is a return to the days when everything could be solo'd. That's what you want from an MMO !

[psykopeta]

Yes, what the game needs more than ever is a return to the days when everything could be solo'd. That's what you want from an MMO !

technically it's not a return, it's the current path, removing old mechanics that force grouping, for example tor

[whoolsey]

Yes, what the game needs more than ever is a return to the days when everything could be solo'd. That's what you want from an MMO !

The raiding scene is dead.
The lfm's don't fill even if someone actually set one up
Those that could hide in their channels to filter out the rif raf but even they started dropping of eventually.
A good example of a poorly done raid is the latest blue dragon one, yes its so unimpressive i couldn't be bothered to learn it's name.
The loot was meh, only a % better then the more reliable bta slavlords gear and the quest mechanics and mob/ boss hp a boring slog.
Back in the day, raids like shroud, tod/vod/ hound/pikers fate, von, chrono, were filled in an instant, fun, casual ( in terms of party conversation). They were for the most part, fun.
They allowed for more build variety due to a better difficulty ballancing act.

Compared to say; the newer lagfests, doj, citw, riding the storm out(i had to looknit up), the 3 legendairy hound/ts/shroud with their terrible ballance issues, the older raids seemed more fun, due to the social nature of an mmo.
With a small % in hiding, the servers being less populated and what remains spread over a larger level range, it's rediculess to even make a raid, its a waste of man hours.

Back in the day, having a toon capeble to run shroud didn't take as much and all you needed were a couple of vets to pulll you through on your first lifer.
I still have 5 shroud healers from that era.
But with the content being so out of whack, it is no use to have a couple of first life farmers at cap.
I guess it saves us the money we would have spend on those toons i guess.

[Kza]

I am torn. Since ddo started the recycle tour with reincarnations
The whole community is divided at lvl 1-30 and many insta reincarnate at 20 or 30.

That makes raids harder to fill in this game than most others, even that this game has
More players!!

So yes, maybe a bad Idea use dev redources on something
Very few vill play regularly?

Plz make community have a strong incentive be at cap lvl again?

But how i have no Idea of.

[dragons1ayer74]

My vote would be quests over raids; if its a quest at some point I know I will see it and play it the same can not be said if it was a raid. I don't hate raiding but also don't get to play near as many as I would like too as I don't often have dedicated time to commit to raiding or when I do it is hard or impossible to get a group together.

[SirValentine]

There has not been a raiding community (now be honest) for years

...and there won't be if they don't make more raids.

[psykopeta]

deal with it, there will be a raid, abd dead servers or those w/o raiding scene (like thelanis) won't run it

like RSO or LE shroud or DOJ or 10 skulls

with luck you will run it once, 1 yaer after release

but hey, there're no population issuesxD

[die]

...and there won't be if they don't make more raids.

That is a weak argument. There are a many raids. The population is dropped. Friends are gone. The game is over 10 yrs old ( However I still play and love it) But I find myself just talking in chat channel. Everyone is Tr'ing or crafting or what ever. Its not the same as it was and It wont be. I am looking forward to this expansion very much so. SO this is not a Doom thread, just a plea to make it a quest, no one loses.


-Doom

[JOTMON]

I have been stoked for this Module to go live. I heard that the actual castle will be a raid? Please no, I have been playing this game for a **** long time, I have not raided in a group for years, unless we short man with a few friends. For the love of God don't make this into a raid.

There has not been a raiding community (now be honest) for years, yes occasionally you will see a lfm up for one, but not like the Golden days, when every one gathered out front of reaver or shroud,


Sincerely - Doom

That's silly talk.
I want raids, and lots of them.

We are tired of the LR TR RR ETR farms..

We have had enough of the recycling of old content

Transitional levelling gear is just that.. a stepping stone to better things..

We are bored with filler levelling content

Its time for better things..

The reason we do all these past life farms for all the power perks..

We are playing a game of adventurers, not farmville



Its time for raids..

Its time for Endgame

How much more screwing around and declining player base does the game need before it embraces the ultimate goal of players.. endgame...

Endgame worthy raids to challenge our toons at the best they can possibly be.

Bring the player base together in level range for endgame.

Its time for endgame raids and the best of the best loot.

[die]

That's silly talk.
I want raids, and lots of them.

We are tired of the LR TR RR ETR farms..

We have had enough of the recycling of old content

Transitional levelling gear is just that.. a stepping stone to better things..

We are bored with filler levelling content

Its time for better things..

The reason we do all these past life farms for all the power perks..

We are playing a game of adventurers, not farmville



Its time for raids..

Its time for Endgame

How much more screwing around and declining player base does the game need before it embraces the ultimate goal of players.. endgame...

Endgame worthy raids to challenge our toons at the best they can possibly be.

Bring the player base together in level range for endgame.

Its time for endgame raids and the best of the best loot.

I love your enthusiasm Jotman, I really do. I even use to play with you and cetus, and Lando when you were with the silver dragons.. I think that was the name. Any way If I thought for one second that the Glory days would be back and there would be multiple lfm's for raids and you didn't have to be part of some small niche group I would be all for it.

I have not seen a community in this game to even come close to the days of the shroud, which IMO was the last heyday.

After the Shroud we had the year of no info, no new content.. Then we finally got Amrath. But the community never recovered Imo. My Intentions are not to be doom and gloom, I just want to be able to run the Castle with out having to be in a niche group or having to try and Solo which I do at times, as long as the mechanics will allow.

- Doom

[SirValentine]

That is a weak argument. There are a many raids.

That's an even weaker argument, as there are far, far more quests than raids. Do we have to compare the numbers?

...just a plea to make it a quest, no one loses.

They are going to make quests, so people who don't want to play raids gain either way.

You're specifically asking to screw over the people who want raids. You're asking for them to lose, and then claiming no one loses?

If there were hypothetical people asking for everything to be raids, no quests at all, you might have a point, but there aren't. And I doubt the devs would do that anyway.

[whoolsey]

That's silly talk.
I want raids, and lots of them.

We are tired of the LR TR RR ETR farms..

We have had enough of the recycling of old content

Transitional levelling gear is just that.. a stepping stone to better things..

We are bored with filler levelling content

Its time for better things..

The reason we do all these past life farms for all the power perks..

We are playing a game of adventurers, not farmville



Its time for raids..

Its time for Endgame

How much more screwing around and declining player base does the game need before it embraces the ultimate goal of players.. endgame...

Endgame worthy raids to challenge our toons at the best they can possibly be.

Bring the player base together in level range for endgame.

Its time for endgame raids and the best of the best loot.

With all due respect, you seem to be part of a small niche group of end game players that seems active and plays around the same time.

On my server, raiding is prety much dead. Trying to get a party together takes an hour and 50% is dead weight hoping for a completion.
Many here were put of by lag fests (doj looks terrible with those walls btw), insane dificulty spikes(legendairy raids), boring content(blue dragon raid), elitist isolation(people hiding in chat channels and 3rd party chat programs to exchange the latest builds, exploits, save spots and features like duping).

And thats just the raiding, i've seen my fair share of people recently leaving due to the reape grind. Having half or more of your toons power taken away and being forced to play content that doesn't support your playstyle just to keep up just isn' fun. But they felt compelled anyway, they knew reaper would become the new standard for quests and raids, just like elite became the standard.

But unlike others, they didn't find exp&slayer pots, otto stones, copied goods, card pots, stacks of mabar ghost touch& meteor augments in their backpacks to help get through the reaper infested racial pastlives. Nor do they have the willingness to run exploit build through content. It would't suprise me if it takes another year before they were back at cap, assuming they kept playing.

We also know from previous updates that the devs keep assuming we all grind those PL and they keep making content harder and harder. For those that play multiple toons this get tedious. Half the content is already unplayeble on old builds. I have 3 triple completionists. One of them is going throughracial&reaper lives and hopefully will be at cap in september/ october at this rate. However i'm not sure if i should bother with the other 2. With the dificulty spiking and the grind to look foreward to, i'm not sure it's worth the agrevation, meaning those 2 toons (with +7 tomes, best gear, skill tomes, remnant tomes, triple heroic, triple epic and triple iconic PL) will eventually fall to the wayside.
Just like many other bank toons, i just can't keep up with the way endgame keeps raising the bar.

I most likely won't be buying the ravenloft pack either, not worth it imho .
untill it goes on sale. I simply refuse to promote the route this game is taking

[JOTMON]

With all due respect, you seem to be part of a small niche group of end game players that seems active and plays around the same time.

On my server, raiding is prety much dead. Trying to get a party together takes an hour and 50% is dead weight hoping for a completion.

~snip~

~snip~
Just like many other bank toons, i just can't keep up with the way endgame keeps raising the bar.

I most likely won't be buying the ravenloft pack either, not worth it imho .
untill it goes on sale. I simply refuse to promote the route this game is taking

Our small niche group is the remnants of what used to be a larger community

The implementation of Reaper as an at level challenge is as I see it a big part of the problem.
It pulled a large clump of endgame players back into the levelling hamster wheel or out of the game..
Combine that with a lack of endgame content and poor banking it added a few more nails into the endgame group of players..

Why farm endgame BTC items if you are going to hamster wheel lives and have to deal with limited TR caching of gear that maybe future useful and poor alternative banking.
well.. you don't.. you say screw the high level BTC gear since there will likely be better new stuff by the time we finish the reincarnation lives.
Now just like that a large pool of would be endgame players are out of endgame and playing transitional optimized toons for levelling lives that are completely different than what they would play for endgame.

Levelling content is a means to an end, the reason we do past lives and +7 tomes and gear hunting and all the other perks isn't to boost the temporary position of levelling..
We are building our toons to be the best that they can be for endgame and future content..
Nobody cares about harbor quests on Reaper 10.. yeah we did it for a one and done just to see if we could.. but ultimately it is meaningless.
There is no player intent to build uber toons to be parked these levels.



While the current implementation of reaper is more successful than I expected its not because of the 'challenge' factor..
its because of the perks provided that will benefit the future endgame build.
Optimal Reaper XP is coming from the double dip of reincarnation lives and RXP/min speed of first time completions of heroics. another insult to endgame players.

A large part of what used to be the community was anticipating Reaper to be the difficulty level beyond Legendary.. the addition and escalation of all content to level 34+ difficulty..
the stuff that would be in line with the Cannith crafting level 30(34) gear and beyond..
This would have been the gravy zone for endgame toons.. all content scaled to endgame and the Legendary+ gear revitalized from all the old content.

Instead we got 0 endgame and no reason to stay in endgame.




We do have a growing power divide between the XXX completionists and the alts or other transitional toons..

The pool of playable toons has dropped significantly.
I have 45 toons on my account, 15 of them have TR lives to some degree .. and I played a large spectrum of alt toons at various times.

In todays game I play My main toon and periodically pop out my 2nd main toon to play some endgame stuff.
The rest are effectively permanently packmuled and based on the current trend these mules will likely never be played again.. there is too much of a void.
Instead of logging in and saying hey I will jump onto this or that toon since there are people playing in this level range or I am on timer let me grab an alt..
it now ..nope.. my mains or nothing.. and I am seeing the same position from many other players..


I would have liked to have seen better options for things to drop that carried the same bonuses as the past lives..
short duration pots/clickies/collectible turn-in/ddo store consumables/remnant pots, etc.. that gave the same bonus type as the past life stat and bonuses.
This would give alternative options for non quadruple triple completionists to get options to bring themselves closer to these players..
The xxx completionist has static permanent bonuses, while the alt can suck down a dozen multi sourced pots to temp buff the same bonus types and get close..
This would allow players to compete on a similar level as the xxx completionists and even these completionists could save/use these pots on alts to bring them back into usefulness..

Currently every player I have come across has dumped all but their main toons into the packmule stables and I don't see this changing based on the current direction of thegame...

[Retired_Old_Gamer]

I have been stoked for this Module to go live. I heard that the actual castle will be a raid?

If the module is developed to it's full potential and translated to DDO properly, then yes the final fight should be a raid.

And we should see the biggest explorer area this game has. With the castle & towns and all the area, this should be a blast.

I would like the raid to be soloable, .

NO, NO, NO, a raid is a multi-player scenario. Again,..... NO

[Retired_Old_Gamer]

With all due respect,
I most likely won't be buying the ravenloft pack either, not worth it imho .
untill it goes on sale. I simply refuse to promote the route this game is taking

Based on your posts, "with all due respect" ....

Thelanis, the raid scene is still decent, with the different chat channels and social panel.

A little tip, use the forums to schedule raids for your server.

As for the expansion, you buying it, and your shared disdain for reaper, I'd ask for your stuff, but all the good stuff is bound so.................

[whoolsey]

Our small niche group is the remnants of what used to be a larger community

The implementation of Reaper as an at level challenge is as I see it a big part of the problem.
It pulled a large clump of endgame players back into the levelling hamster wheel or out of the game..
Combine that with a lack of endgame content and poor banking it added a few more nails into the endgame group of players..

Why farm endgame BTC items if you are going to hamster wheel lives and have to deal with limited TR caching of gear that maybe future useful and poor alternative banking.
well.. you don't.. you say screw the high level BTC gear since there will likely be better new stuff by the time we finish the reincarnation lives.
Now just like that a large pool of would be endgame players are out of endgame and playing transitional optimized toons for levelling lives that are completely different than what they would play for endgame.

Levelling content is a means to an end, the reason we do past lives and +7 tomes and gear hunting and all the other perks isn't to boost the temporary position of levelling..
We are building our toons to be the best that they can be for endgame and future content..
Nobody cares about harbor quests on Reaper 10.. yeah we did it for a one and done just to see if we could.. but ultimately it is meaningless.
There is no player intent to build uber toons to be parked these levels.



While the current implementation of reaper is more successful than I expected its not because of the 'challenge' factor..
its because of the perks provided that will benefit the future endgame build.
Optimal Reaper XP is coming from the double dip of reincarnation lives and RXP/min speed of first time completions of heroics. another insult to endgame players.

A large part of what used to be the community was anticipating Reaper to be the difficulty level beyond Legendary.. the addition and escalation of all content to level 34+ difficulty..
the stuff that would be in line with the Cannith crafting level 30(34) gear and beyond..
This would have been the gravy zone for endgame toons.. all content scaled to endgame and the Legendary+ gear revitalized from all the old content.

Instead we got 0 endgame and no reason to stay in endgame.




We do have a growing power divide between the XXX completionists and the alts or other transitional toons..

The pool of playable toons has dropped significantly.
I have 45 toons on my account, 15 of them have TR lives to some degree .. and I played a large spectrum of alt toons at various times.

In todays game I play My main toon and periodically pop out my 2nd main toon to play some endgame stuff.
The rest are effectively permanently packmuled and based on the current trend these mules will likely never be played again.. there is too much of a void.
Instead of logging in and saying hey I will jump onto this or that toon since there are people playing in this level range or I am on timer let me grab an alt..
it now ..nope.. my mains or nothing.. and I am seeing the same position from many other players..


I would have liked to have seen better options for things to drop that carried the same bonuses as the past lives..
short duration pots/clickies/collectible turn-in/ddo store consumables/remnant pots, etc.. that gave the same bonus type as the past life stat and bonuses.
This would give alternative options for non quadruple triple completionists to get options to bring themselves closer to these players..
The xxx completionist has static permanent bonuses, while the alt can suck down a dozen multi sourced pots to temp buff the same bonus types and get close..
This would allow players to compete on a similar level as the xxx completionists and even these completionists could save/use these pots on alts to bring them back into usefulness..

Currently every player I have come across has dumped all but their main toons into the packmule stables and I don't see this changing based on the current direction of thegame...

Thanks for the reply, you've put effort in it and it shows.

I understand your point on gear, it has no use grinding that gear, bta/unbound gear is better for tr-ing and raid gear is often surpassed by later gear or nerfed by devs.
Why wast money on timers when your gear and build can and will be destroyed by a dev's whim?

This situation, where everyone of your already diminished endgame group has 1main in the reaper/racial tr cycle and the game bleeding players, aren't those related?
I'm not sure 'bout your neck of the woods but over here i see people getting burned out on reaper and growingly frustrated over isuess with agro still not working correctly, their playstyle not being supported in reaper or the sheer weight on their shoulder about the future of their toons due to the idea that by the time they are done with racial lives and go back to cap/30 they either have to grind cap for reaper exp on their fav build wich isn't supported by reaper mode or need to work on toon nr 2, working its way to racial completionist.

The thing is, nobody seems to understand that the special few that keep claiming the game was to easy, that group of end game people you used to run with and is now getting even more power and build options is directly correlated to the decline of the game.

I was recently talking to a newby, someone who was part of other mmo endgame communities. He asked me what he had to do to join end game. I told him about tr-ing, he was instantly interested, untill he began to grasp the time involved, he was gone after that.

This is ddo's issue.
The devs lost their inspirationnand just throw wave after wave of numbers at us.
The end game is hemorrhaging players because the bar is too high, the level of grind to be maxed out at cap is insane.

The catch up potion wouldn't work. The people who did have those PL grinded out would protest in an instant.

I don't understand why people felt the need for a setting above legendairy, that was already incredebly broken as is.
On LE, prior to slavelords, no melee could hold sorjec, let alone tank him, most LE completions involved kitting and standing behind a pillar where he can't touch you.
Hound was either cheesed(waiting out the epic timer) or tanked by a wl for the buffs and temp hp. It quickly turned into a ranged dps fest over here.
So in content that already screwed over builds people wanted a harder setting? Why?
To make things worse, they want reaper enh points and reaper gear that in time will invalidate reaper mode?
What is wrong with people?

/rant off

sigh

[Rys]

Thanks for the reply, you've put effort in it and it shows.

I understand your point on gear, it has no use grinding that gear, bta/unbound gear is better for tr-ing and raid gear is often surpassed by later gear or nerfed by devs.
Why wast money on timers when your gear and build can and will be destroyed by a dev's whim?

This situation, where everyone of your already diminished endgame group has 1main in the reaper/racial tr cycle and the game bleeding players, aren't those related?
I'm not sure 'bout your neck of the woods but over here i see people getting burned out on reaper and growingly frustrated over isuess with agro still not working correctly, their playstyle not being supported in reaper or the sheer weight on their shoulder about the future of their toons due to the idea that by the time they are done with racial lives and go back to cap/30 they either have to grind cap for reaper exp on their fav build wich isn't supported by reaper mode or need to work on toon nr 2, working its way to racial completionist.

The thing is, nobody seems to understand that the special few that keep claiming the game was to easy, that group of end game people you used to run with and is now getting even more power and build options is directly correlated to the decline of the game.

I was recently talking to a newby, someone who was part of other mmo endgame communities. He asked me what he had to do to join end game. I told him about tr-ing, he was instantly interested, untill he began to grasp the time involved, he was gone after that.

This is ddo's issue.
The devs lost their inspirationnand just throw wave after wave of numbers at us.
The end game is hemorrhaging players because the bar is too high, the level of grind to be maxed out at cap is insane.

The catch up potion wouldn't work. The people who did have those PL grinded out would protest in an instant.

I don't understand why people felt the need for a setting above legendairy, that was already incredebly broken as is.
On LE, prior to slavelords, no melee could hold sorjec, let alone tank him, most LE completions involved kitting and standing behind a pillar where he can't touch you.
Hound was either cheesed(waiting out the epic timer) or tanked by a wl for the buffs and temp hp. It quickly turned into a ranged dps fest over here.
So in content that already screwed over builds people wanted a harder setting? Why?
To make things worse, they want reaper enh points and reaper gear that in time will invalidate reaper mode?
What is wrong with people?

/rant off

sigh

Both pretty gimpy, without Slaver's gear. It was mostly about the build Vanhooger created. You don't really need the PLs. The game knowledge is probably more important than that.

[Hoglum]

Sure there should perhaps be raids in the expansion but don't ruin classic D&D stuff turning adventure modules into raids.

Look no further than how bad they trashed Lolth, one of the most popular D&D villains ever.

Not much of a draw for the game now, is it?