Casual Observations

[TeldinTabath]

Hi everyone,

I think I have to call myself a casual player. I've been playing for about a month and my toon is only up to level 10. I do have the occasional marathon session, but not all the time. As such, I am not a DDO expert in any way, shape or form. I play Teldin, or as some might know me: "That idiot who's been following the piper for ages". After the update, I noticed a piper wandering around House P for the first time. After hearing his jaunty tune, I immediately took off my armor and followed him around for a long, long time. I think this provides enough context for the following observations about being a low-mid level cleric on Orien:

1-Radiant servant is awesome. The aura is absolutely ridiculous and regenerating turn undeads makes me smile.

2-Turn undead should never be used for turn undead, unless you're doing a favor run. I imagine with a sacred item, enhancements and maybe a few TR, you might be able to kill some undead during an XP run. But as I am now, it's just a waste of a divine vitality/radiant aura.

3-Most of the time, it's difficult to find a PuG. Most group listings are now just guild recruitment adds. Back at lower levels, it was easy to log in at anytime and find a group. At mid-level, I only seem to find groups at certain times of the day. That wouldn't be a problem if that time wasn't midnight or later.

4-PuG members should talk before starting a quest. Most problems I've encountered during a quest occur because people have different expectations. If everything is set beforehand, people are usually happier and quests are more successful.

5-Zergers aren't all bad. And this is not coming from a zerger. I am not experienced enough to zerg. I'm slow, clumsy and my reflex save is the same as a slow moving banana. And most people that I've seen try to Zerg were pretty bad at it. But, I did adventure with a few good zergers once, and it was madhouse. We talked beforehand (point 4) so I knew who to follow, what to expect, bought some haste pots and ran like crazy. It was a completely different experience from what I had seen previously. So have an open mind.

6-Ideal party make-up is good to shoot for, but not required at these levels. It's true that having the right ratio of melee, spells and heals will make a dungeon easier. However, some of the funnest dungeon runs I've ever done had the weirdest parties. Keep in mind I didn't say easiest, I said funnest. It forces everyone to think outside of their classically defined roles and maybe discover something about your class that you didn't know.

Anyway, I think this is enough for my first post. I also have to get back to editing or my supervisor is going to throw me out of a window. Hopefully I'll see you all online!

[unscythe]

Great post, you got some great insight after a month of barely playing. Would be a great player to play with it seems if your open minded and can communicate.

Being able to keep up great.

My only problem is that you can't find parties, it probably is due to your time of play (no idea of your time zone), but as a cleric you should be spammed invites the second you log in from random people. Or maybe you hae majestic anti-desperate/new player aura like I did when I was leveling my cleric.

P.S If you can't find a group, make one, set up the party the way you like, and post if ya don't knoww the quest. Good Luck.

[Thlargir]

Excellent post, from a point of view that I think is shared by a great number of players, though not, perhaps those posting on the fora.

I am f2p (except for a birthday gift of a couple of points from my son who, I think, expected it to be reciprocated :-)) and have been playing 6 months. For the first five I soloed a number of different classes to level 10-12. I then decided to try my hand at pug'ing.

The fun of the pug was, surprisingly, the diversity of groups. The groups, where clueless as I was, I was the least clueless, to the first time I ran Tempest Spine, where I was running the whole time and maybe got off a couple of hits in the whole thing. That was cool though, because after everybody left after the boss fight I stuck around for the guys that had been blown off the mountain and not made it back alive and explored the whole complex pencil and paper in hand. Yes, I know maps are available, but its not the same - is it?

So, I would add:
7) If asked by the group leader if you are familiar with the quest, answer no, even if you think you know it a little, because most folks are willing to take that into consideration and are more pleased by a surprise on the upside.

[TeldinTabath]

Great post, you got some great insight after a month of barely playing. Would be a great player to play with it seems if your open minded and can communicate.

Being able to keep up great.

My only problem is that you can't find parties, it probably is due to your time of play (no idea of your time zone), but as a cleric you should be spammed invites the second you log in from random people. Or maybe you hae majestic anti-desperate/new player aura like I did when I was leveling my cleric.

P.S If you can't find a group, make one, set up the party the way you like, and post if ya don't knoww the quest. Good Luck.

Thanks for the compliments! I think you're right - it must be the time of day. Had no problems finding groups this morning. Unfortunately, my schedule is very hectic so I can't really set a specific playing time. I hope the lack of invites is not some kind of anti-new/desperate vibe. Mind you, I do prefer a tell before an invite, but it's not a necessity. I'll quest with anybody - I'm not picky.

I have posted a group a few times but there are only a couple of quest where I feel comfortable being the leader. From now on, I'll make sure to post that I don't know the quest, along with my usual offer of punch and pie.


Excellent post, from a point of view that I think is shared by a great number of players, though not, perhaps those posting on the fora.

I am f2p (except for a birthday gift of a couple of points from my son who, I think, expected it to be reciprocated :-)) and have been playing 6 months. For the first five I soloed a number of different classes to level 10-12. I then decided to try my hand at pug'ing.

The fun of the pug was, surprisingly, the diversity of groups. The groups, where clueless as I was, I was the least clueless, to the first time I ran Tempest Spine, where I was running the whole time and maybe got off a couple of hits in the whole thing. That was cool though, because after everybody left after the boss fight I stuck around for the guys that had been blown off the mountain and not made it back alive and explored the whole complex pencil and paper in hand. Yes, I know maps are available, but its not the same - is it?

So, I would add:
7) If asked by the group leader if you are familiar with the quest, answer no, even if you think you know it a little, because most folks are willing to take that into consideration and are more pleased by a surprise on the upside.

Making your own map would definitely be better than just looking at those online. Also, I agree with 7).


I have one more observation:

8-Your microphone volume is too low. Whoever is reading this post, this applies to you. Everyone who uses a mic should raise their volume and bring it closer to their face. So far, only one person I've ever quested with had their mic set-up right. One. And it was a few hours ago. In that PuG, the party leader had a mic with proper volume and clarity. In all the groups I've ever been a part of, it was the first time I could understand voice chat clearly. Cooperation between members was much easier and we did some good questing, even though we had no tank/melee.

Seriously, I just thought garbled and low mics were a property of the game - that the voice chat provided by Turbine was just inherently awful.

Thanks for you replies, it always helps to get feedback.