Is it really fun to run a raid 7 times in a row?

[Thrudh]

Occasionally, I'll see LFMs up that say "Reaver 4 of 7" or "Hound #7"

Do some power-gamers actually log on every 3 days, and just run the same raid over and over on each of their capped characters? Then move on to the next raid?

I guess it's efficient, but are those guys really having fun?

It's usually the same people who complain the loudest on these boards about how they hate this game and Turbine, by the way...

[BlackSteel]

dont u know? you gotta treat DDO like a second job. or even in some cases your only job.

sometimes I'm glad I only have 2 capped characters that I play. I have a strong feeling that once I level up a Favored Soul, my cleric will be getting shelved along with the couple other characters I have gathering dust as extra storage.

[Giselle]

Dude, our guild used to run the Reaver 9 times every Tuesday night. I got so sick of that quest that I haven't set foot in it for 6 months.

To answer your question: NO! It is not *fun* to run raids that many times in a row. By the ninth toon, I was usually preparing for ritual suicide. :(

[silverraven]

I usually can run a raid about 6 times before I think about putting my fist through the screen and popping advil.

My guild does this purely to give everyone a chance to run it. You may bring a cleric then a caster then DPS....all depending whose off timer and who has to leave soon or wont be back for an hour or so. Is it fun? Not overly, but its effficient and everyone gets a turn. Ever see an LFM for a raid and think, "I wish there was one in an hour" or even if you gotta go for dinner and won't be back for a few then you know you've got time to spare and missing that 1 raid doesn't seem so important.


ITS CALLED SHARING

[Angelus_dead]

Occasionally, I'll see LFMs up that say "Reaver 4 of 7" or "Hound #7"
You are correct that those situations are not as fun as they could be, which reflects mistaken game design by Turbine. It would be nice if the loot rules hadn't pushed players into full groups, but that's how things are. Suggestions to change it are met with derision by self-described "casuals", who fear never being invited to a raid except as a lootbot.

You see, if you want a full chance at loot you need to have a full group of 12. But assembling a group of 10+ people takes a long time; longer than to actually run the raid. So once you have that group, it's better to swap to alts and do the raid again. That way your 45 minutes of group-filling can be applied to 60+ minutes of actual gameplay, instead of just beating one raid in 15 minutes and then going off to do something else.


As to the specific raids you asked about:
When a group does several sequential Reaver raids, not everyone really participates on each run. Some players will kick back and chat or even read the web on some of the runs, and later take a turn at helping. That choice is mostly driven by character class, because some characters just don't have much they can do to be useful. But even the players who are actively participating find it a low-stress chitchat session. After all, the primary thing you do in Reaver is wait for the giant to decide it's time to light the orbs; the players can do nothing to speed him up.

Hound raids are a bit different. The Hound is only 6-9 minutes long, so 7 runs of that means you've actually been playing it for under an hour. That's not bad at all. The problem with Hound runs is that each time you have to make the same long Subterane run to get back to the quest. That run is somewhat fun and challenging for 3-5 players, but is completely boring with a group of 12. The risk that arises is that people will fall asleep and run off cliffs, creating a delay to go fetch them.


Do some power-gamers actually log on every 3 days, and just run the same raid over and over on each of their capped characters? Then move on to the next raid?
No, your observation doesn't support that conclusion.

Those players do raid heavily, because they've already done everything else many times too.

[Impaqt]

Believe it or not, some people do indeed enjoy raiding. While I rarely will run the same quest 7 Times in a Row, I have been known to do 3 or 4 back to back and all of my 10 Capped Characters are usualy on at least one Raid timer if not more.

[Alcides]

Normally, I have fun in most raids. Even if it's the Xth time I've ran it. It's not really so much about accomplishing anything more than it is just doing something with other players and enjoying the conversations while the raid is commencing. Now if everyone is having fun grinding out the raids and having a good time then it's probably okay.

[Angelus_dead]

all of my 10 Capped Characters are usualy on at least one Raid timer if not more.
Of course they're on a raid timer; what else is there to do?

Favor runs? SOS? That's not much. The fact is that raiding is DDO's endgame.

[EKKM]

I recently came to the conclusion that I dont really like the end game as much as the journey to the end game. Probably going to spend a lot less time on my 2 capped characters now.

If it matters, I am pretty casual so haven't leveled up[ 20 characters to cap either.

[BlackSteel]

i try to stay on timer for shroud for my two regulars. if i do anything else its just gravy; farming for a +3 tome in a dump stat = not worth the effort. I actually do a pretty bad job of doing shroud 2x every 3 days due to wife aggro.

[Phidius]

It can also be seen as an indicator of confidence... some people are reluctant to join an unknown leader's raid LFM because of the risk of it 1) failing, or 2) taking a long time to fill.

While posting "1 of 4" is more of a promise, the group tends to fill fast (and run smooth) when the LFM pops back up as "2 of 4".

Personally, I have more fun when I don't stand around waiting to fill.

[Giselle]

Those players do raid heavily, because they've already done everything else many times too.

I agree. I think a lot of people are so bored with the game that the only motivation they have at this point is *loots.* All the named raid loot, more Shroud ingredients....

With no new content and no open toon slots, there aren't a lot of opportunities for new and exciting game experiences. Unless you want to delete a capped toon that you're happy with and start over, (and why would you want to do that?) your only option for game play is loot-prostituting at this point.

[Grosbeak07]

No 2 raids are the same. I was in a pug the other day with a Sorc doing like his 120th Reaver, he got nothing as loot, yet my Bard in there for the 4th time, got a +3 CHA tome and a +1 Dex Tome as end reward.

I was in another reaver, with a guy doing his 40th run. Everything went smoothly and we took down the Reaver, and only then did we realize that no one had ever gotten fly :D.

Just becuase you run the same raid 7 times in a row, doesn't mean they are all the same.

[Angelus_dead]

I recently came to the conclusion that I dont really like the end game as much as the journey to the end game.
That's a widespread viewpoint, which leads to suggestions to change the raid loot rules, so that endgame raids can feel more like the 6-man dungeons that preceded them.

[Demonfire]

Occasionally, I'll see LFMs up that say "Reaver 4 of 7" or "Hound #7"

Do some power-gamers actually log on every 3 days, and just run the same raid over and over on each of their capped characters? Then move on to the next raid?

I guess it's efficient, but are those guys really having fun?

It's usually the same people who complain the loudest on these boards about how they hate this game and Turbine, by the way...

2 explainations for that!

#1 Lack of content
#2 forced grinding to acheive high end.

Enjoy ddo ;)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Not IMO.

But from what I see, I must be in the minority.

I think many of the top large guilds have indoctrinated many players into this lifestye.

To each there own, but its also the cause of several trends I do not like.
From building chars to be good at raids from lvl1, powerlvling, and just being critical of anyone who they perceive as slowing down their completions times.

It makes not only the repetitive raiding undesirable IMO, but also makes the players involved not fun to run with either IMO.

Sadly, some of them are people I really enjoyed playing with back in the day... :(

[Thrudh]

building chars to be good at raids from lvl1, powerlvling, and just being critical of anyone who they perceive as slowing down their completions times.

Excellent post...

It's true that a lot of people on these boards ONLY think about end-game raid DPS when commenting on character builds... I agree, not a good trend...

Like it really matters if one kills the Pit Fiend in 1 round or 2...

Devs need to come up with a raid that doesn't involve beating on million hp raid bosses.

[maddmatt70]

I do what you say OP with shrouds. It is just far more efficient to do it that way. It becomes one long 4 hour shroud with different challenges in between. It also really helps our guild in many ways so I will keep doing it.

Edit: oh and I enjoy farming shrouds more then farming bloodstones, teleport masks, planar girds, icy rainments, or scourge chokers.

[Thrudh]

I do what you say OP with shrouds. It is just far more efficient to do it that way. It becomes one long 4 hour shroud with different challenges in between. It also really helps our guild in many ways so I will keep doing it.


I agree that it's more efficient, and I've done 3-4 Shrouds in a row before... Pretty draining for me though... Different strokes for different folks I guess..

[Mhykke]

I don't really run the same raid 7 times in a row in one night, but have done so occasionally.

I still have fun doing it. This is a game, and if a quest isn't fun, or I stop having fun doing a quest, I won't run it.

Fun is subjective. Some people out there enjoy it, some don't.

[foxx]

well if those jkers called devs would put out some content on a regular basis, then there might be something else to do.
to answer the question,
oh ya it's a bloody blast ,
kinda like being married to the same person for 2000 years.

[gfunk]

Typical night for me would be 1 to 3 shrouds, and a combination of 2 or 3 of: hound/vod/titan/reaver (total 3 to 6 raids / night). If leading, I get a bit burnt after the 3rd raid. If someone else is leading, I could raid all night (assuming the leader is good and the parties are forming fast).

I find that the more people there are online that I know, the less tiring things are (as groups get much easier to form and you don't have to give much instruction). I suspect the larger raiding guilds would have more stamina for repeat-raiding then people who are in smaller guilds or are pugging.

[Delt]

Excellent post...

It's true that a lot of people on these boards ONLY think about end-game raid DPS when commenting on character builds... I agree, not a good trend...

Nothing "excellent" about it. Being built well for DPS end game = being good DPS. Being built for gimp DPS end game = being gimp. Just because you can get away with gimp output in non-end game raids doesn't change the reality of the output.


Like it really matters if one kills the Pit Fiend in 1 round or 2...

Probably matters to the cleric (and I've yet to see you attempt to pass out donations while i'm on my cleric). Probably matters to the people running it for the millionth time.


Devs need to come up with a raid that doesn't involve beating on million hp raid bosses.

They did...see Hound and Titan.

[Furbitor]

Even swapping out people in those grind-fests, I usually don't like to stick with a party longer than a couple hours together before moving on.

its always been that way with me

[maddmatt70]

I agree that it's more efficient, and I've done 3-4 Shrouds in a row before... Pretty draining for me though... Different strokes for different folks I guess..

I have been actually thinking of posting a very successful shroud night in the Achievement Forums. For instance if we did 10 shrouds in 4.5 real life hours or something of that nature. The shroud just makes so much money for us it pays for everything else whether it is trading for other gear, lowbies twink, etc. Most of our guild mails the weapons they loot to their bards and they make several hundred k plat just off of that for 4.5 hours of playing. It also binds us together. By the way people will sit out a run or two during the course of the shrouds and both the east coasters and west coasters get to run their share. It really is like old school tempest spine or pop where people would sack those. We do not do this with any other raid or quest in DDO although on ocassion we will do a bunch of Sos and Sos pre-quests.

[Tymoriel_Ayreweaver]

Not IMO.

To each there own, but its also the cause of several trends I do not like.
From building chars to be good at raids from lvl1, powerlvling, and just being critical of anyone who they perceive as slowing down their completions times.

It makes not only the repetitive raiding undesirable IMO, but also makes the players involved not fun to run with either IMO.

Sadly, some of them are people I really enjoyed playing with back in the day... :(

I could not agree with you more. There does seem to be an element of disdain for those who chose to not concern themselves with raiding. I moved on from a guild a couple of days ago for this reason. They will deny this but their main focus is raiding and powerleveling lowbees to get to the shroud and other raids. They pretty much only run quests which provide the maximum xp and everything else to them is "lame or boring" I was chastised more than once for not wanting to run shroud with my capped bard. I recently came back after 3 years or not having any time to play this game due to my residency. I want to experience all of the enhancements, new content that has been added since September of 06. Maybe that isn't the best way to level a toon but i'm paying to use the content. I only have a few hours to play at night... i would rather play something new than run shroud for the 30th time. I do not fault someone for enjoying this but I am not "lame" for wanting something different.

[EKKM]

That's a widespread viewpoint, which leads to suggestions to change the raid loot rules, so that endgame raids can feel more like the 6-man dungeons that preceded them.

To be honest, it has very little to do with the raid loot, its quests that I am starting to get bored of. I've only run the shroud maybe 10 times between two characters and already I am tired of it. I only recently got the two characters to cap so those 10 shrouds are spaced out over a month as well (like I said - casual). I guess if I had 10 capped characters the raids would be more varied as the raids are quite different depending on the class running them.

I would rather run 50 quests repetitively leveling characters than rerunning the same 5-7 quests on the same 2-3 characters to achieve what is really a marginal improvement to the character.

[Kalari]

To me raiding is a big part of "end game" at this point your not gainning any levels and you have builds you really worked hard on. You can either let them collect dust and work on an umpteenth lowbie till you fill all your character slots.. (which is what happened to me on Sarlona). Or you can raid and actually have a little fun with your capped builds. I think if the game had more to do besides loot/level that raiding hard core wouldnt be the only option high levels have.

But as its been said what else are you gonna do with your level 16s and hopefully one day level 20's? Are you gonna just let them sit there or delete all your work just to start over? There have been nights ive run several raids in a row but thats what happens when you have over 6 level 16s that youve worked hard on and dont want to just not play them.

[Thrudh]

Nothing "excellent" about it. Being built well for DPS end game = being good DPS. Being built for gimp DPS end game = being gimp. Just because you can get away with gimp output in non-end game raids doesn't change the reality of the output.

There's actually something in between max DPS and "gimp". Giving up 20% DPS for 50% survivability may not be a good trade-off in the end-game raid settings, but may be well worth it in end-game quest settings.

You consider big DPS numbers to be uber... I consider being able to take the first 5 people who want to come along (or going solo) another form of uber...



Probably matters to the cleric (and I've yet to see you attempt to pass out donations while i'm on my cleric). Probably matters to the people running it for the millionth time.

The above is respond to my statement to whether it matters if the Pit Fiend takes 1 round or 2...

See here's the thing... Max DPS group want to do it in 1 round... They only take 1 cleric along in order to have yet another max DPS melee in the group... Then they get huge DPS lag, and the 1 cleric has to spam mass cures constantly because he can't respond to the red-bars...

Therefore, 1 cleric, has to spam cures... That group NEEDS to finish in 1 round. If they go too much past that, the cleric may run out of SP...

However, take a more typical group... 2 clerics, and it takes 2 rounds (or 2.5 rounds) to finish off the Pit Fiend... No DPS lag, the clerics can time their mass cures, there's two of them so plenty of SP (plus in many cases, they can DV each other)...

The second scenario is just as good as the first... So it takes 5 minutes longer to run a shroud... who cares? Maybe the people who are running 7 a night.... I guess that extra 35 minutes could get annoying...

In either case, the cleric doesn't have to use any resources... (And I always pony up if the cleric has to use pots... Your cleric has used pots on runs with me?)

People focus too much on DPS... Yes, we all want our characters to be as good as possible... That's why I grind so much gear... But there's also something to be said for survivibility...

I'm seriously debating splashing 2 levels of rogue on my 16 pure paladin. It will hurt his end-game DPS to not get the capstone... but evasion and UMD adds a lot to a character... Or maybe two levels of monk... two extra feats would help a lot as well... It's a tough choice... The devs did well... All three options are good... None are intrinisically superior...

You probably would say the max DPS route is the only good choice... I disagree...

[Ranmaru2]

The only time I enjoy a bunch of raids back to back is when I have my guildies there who usually provide one hell of a time :D

[Delt]

You consider big DPS numbers to be uber... I consider being able to take the first 5 people who want to come along (or going solo) another form of uber...

That statement is a fallacy and therefore meaningless. "Big [raid] DPS" in no way negates the ability to be not be picky in 6-man stuff or go solo. If someone can't practice either of those, it falls on the player not the build.


(And I always pony up if the cleric has to use pots... Your cleric has used pots on runs with me?)

Yes, but then again, I suck at clericing and always drink pots.

[Thrudh]

That statement is a fallacy and therefore meaningless. "Big [raid] DPS" in no way negates the ability to be not be picky in 6-man stuff or go solo. If someone can't practice either of those, it falls on the player not the build.

Typically (yes, there are exceptions), focusing on DPS means less self-sufficiency... My DPS barbarian/fighter can only heal himself with pots and doesn't have evasion. He will not be going into Enter the Kobold without a cleric...

My ranger/wizard has evasion and the halfling dragonmarks. He can solo Enter the Kobold and/or will take the first 5 people that want to come along.

That's what I mean... Like my paladin example... Right now my pure 16 paladin MIGHT be able to do Enter the Kobold without a healer in the group... He has cloak of ice, firestorm greaves, and 4 Lay-on-Hands... He'd probably fail though... Give him two rogue levels, and he'll be able to solo it with his eyes closed...

BUT, if I give him two rogue levels, he won't have MAX Shroud raid DPS, and will be possibly be considered gimp by many posters on these forums...

Again, I say... there's levels between MAX DPS and gimp...




Yes, but then again, I suck at clericing and always drink pots.

My apologies then... Usually I pay attention, and watch if a cleric's blue bar jumps up during a quest...

[Borror0]

“The journey is the reward” is a ****ing lie. (People would rather have the princess). (http://www.raphkoster.com/wp-content/IMG_0595.JPG)

That sums it up, really. No, it's not necessarily fun, but people do it any way because humans are so goal-driven.

[5thofnovember]

all my tunes are pretty much capped have have items from lower ends raids which only leaves me SOS gambling or shroud ingred/loot farming, which I actually enjoy because I grp with the same ppl alot and we have alot of fun socail interactions in the process, if anything when my guys are on timer theres not much left for me to do, so I would like to see the raid timers changed from 3 days to 2 days :) to keep me busy between the yearly content additions.

YEA LETS HEAR IT FOR 2 DAY RAID TIMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[78mackson]

YEA LETS HEAR IT FOR 2 DAY RAID TIMERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Should be a relative timer on atleast shroud imho..
1 days if you got 1-2 lvl14+ toons
2 days/3-4 lvl14+toons
3 days everything else...

Raid timers and shroud is bad for new players, good for older ones. I was lucky enough to have like 15 toons maxed once mod6 arrived.. others where unlucky and liked their "main toon" that they had since mod1ish... guess who got the "farking princess" first?

Shroud is a raid where you can get the best raidloot and its unbound.. kinda feeds the lvl grind.. no wonder ppl chuck haste pots and rush everything they see til lvl14...

[redoubt]

Occasionally, I'll see LFMs up that say "Reaver 4 of 7" or "Hound #7"

Do some power-gamers actually log on every 3 days, and just run the same raid over and over on each of their capped characters? Then move on to the next raid?

Yes

I guess it's efficient, but are those guys really having fun?

Sometimes, but the real issue is that there's nothing else to do at this point. I run my raids and then play around with a newbie a bit, but honestly, my interest is waning.

It's usually the same people who complain the loudest on these boards about how they hate this game and Turbine, by the way...

Most likely.