Balance question

[Pardoo]

Our little guild has been in DDO pretty much from the beginning. We play a couple of times a week for a few hours, and are all close to reaching level 10now, so we are definitely casual type gamers. However, lately we are finding that it is damm near impossible for our 4 man group (cleric, sorc, fighter, rogue) to successfully complete any dungeon even remotely level appropriate without bringing thousands of plat worth of wands, potions, scrolls, and losing as much xp as the adventure gives in deaths until we figure out "the trick" to every dungeon.
My question is, is this what the game is balanced for?
My understanding was that the "normal" setting of a quest was set for a party of four of the appropriate level. Do they mean a party of four, with 500 wand healing charges, 200 healing pots, twenty rez scrolls, 50 pots of every resist, etc etc etc?
We love the game, been playing PNP D and D since the late 70's, but we don't like being forced to, as we like to call it, Cheat, in order to even finish a dungeon. and we really don't like having to re run a dungeon a few times after we figure out the tricks in order to make any headway xp wise.
Is that the way the game is intended to work, Or are our tactics just that bad?

[tihocan]

Quests definitely become harder at level 8+. Regardless of (non exploiting) tactics, you're going to be in trouble with a 4 man party who has never done the dungeon.
The game is not really designed to do each quest only once (look at the favor system, unique items, tokens, etc.), so you'll have to either accept to pay a high price in ressources, or sometimes repeat a dungeon you know well enough in order to get easy money/xp.

[AegisAndy]

I don't think anything in recent development (post mod 2) has been balanced for a party of 4.

While theoretically, PnP rules set out CRs for a 4-person team, DDO has seemingly been balanced for full 6/12 man parties in most cases.

That said, even "normal" teams of 6 typically use a lot of resources in high-level quests unless they are a bit above the level of the quest or they know the quest extremely well. My cleric typically carries several wands and a variety of scrolls to keep up with healing. So I wouldn't expect that there will be all that many times when you can cruise through quests at level 10+ without using consumable magic items frequently.

[Pardoo]

Thanks for clearing that up guys. I don't know if that knowledge makes me like it any better, but at least we can adjust our expectations and try to accept it.

[Shade]

Reroll.

Lots of people can do pretty much every quest on normal with an average pug party who have never played together, should rarely requires more then SP then party starts with to beat quests on normal.

Knowing the quest helps a bit but not much imo. All I learn is what resists I don't need, saving the casters a few sp. Otherwise I get them all and do fine.

Should never have to use much wands or scrolls on normal, the odd one on hard and sure expect to use a ton on elite, thats why its elite.

[Broto]

Sounds to me like you need to group with some other folks. There is many tricks and tactics which are very helpful you might be overlooking. Your party actually seems rather balanced in terms of classes to me. Short of playing with you and watching you guys in action its hard to give any further advice.

[Eladiun]

Broto, has a good point. I've learned a number of tricks from other players when PUGing that I hadn't know. If you fill those 2 spots with randoms you might learn a few tricks to help you..