Why is flagging even still a thing?

[tralfaz81]

If you're not going to combine servers, we really need to do away with the whole flagging mechanism. I'm tired of missing raids that are only run every few days because I'm not flagged at the time or waiting forever to even get a shroud run filled because no one else is flagged at the time.

It wasn't a great mechanism to begin with and at this point it's nothing but additional, unnecessary sand in already drying gears. It's past time to let it go and give people the chance to jump into raid groups when they come up.

To the paladins - let me save your time. I know: "blah blah blah in my day", "blah blah blah tradition", "blah blah blah guild runs", "blah blah blah I can flag in two minutes, so should you."

Get over yourselves.

Seriously.

Get.

Over.

Yourselves.

If you want the game to survive, let people play. Stop holding us back.

To SSG - more raids means more people buying raid by-pass timers. You're not going to make any more money protecting this dinosaur; you'll only lose money you could be making.

[nokowi]

If you're not going to combine servers, we really need to do away with the whole flagging mechanism. I'm tired of missing raids that are only run every few days because I'm not flagged at the time or waiting forever to even get a shroud run filled because no one else is flagged at the time.


Yes, asking players to cooperate and plan does seem ludicrous.

I also demand other players be available at my whim, even though I won't take the simple step of flagging myself to make this happen.

I certainly won't post a flagging LFM and gather interested players for the raid. Standing at the raid, not playing, and waiting on an LFM is much more enjoyable than gathering players in flagging quests and actually playing the game.

[Enerdhil]

I certainly won't post a flagging LFM and gather interested players for the raid. Standing at the raid, not playing, and waiting on an LFM is much more enjoyable than gathering players in flagging quests and actually playing the game.

Now i'm pretty sure you're describing yourself, cause you're showing no basic knowledge how dragging party through entire flag works.

I'm from europe. Yeah, it's american game, everyone else shouldn't play it. Sorry, my fault. I should move to US to be able to play it.

Meanwhile in my playing time it's extremly difficult to fill raids. If you're hosting flagging quests you should know they take at least 1h to do. For example i doubt it's possible to do entire vale flag in less than 1.5h. Have you never seen people leaving party after one, two, three quests? It's rare if someone stays for all of them. So even if you'll host flagging quests maybe 3-4 players will do entire flag with you (i'm not saying always). Does it mean all of them want to run a raid? Nope. Sometimes after doing entire flag people are leaving cause "i would like to run it with you, but it won't fill anyway, waiting entire day is waste of time".

I like flagging mechanism, i really do. But on the other hand - if i have a choice: cool mechanic that makes filling raids impossible and no flagging and ability to run raids from time to time - i choose the second. Usually when i log in (late afternoon/evening (basicaly US time +6hrs)) there's maybe 5 people in my lvl range (in my lvl range, not at my lvl!). Even if all of them will join we'll have half of party. Now how many of them are flagged? How many of them are interested in running selected raid? How many of them play right now (being logged in doesn't mean you're interested in questing)? Trust me, i tried. In my playing time it's not easy to fill normal chains. I belive on the way from lvl 1 to 20 i got full party maybe for 10-20% of time spend in game. And trust me, i never play without lfms. For raids i tried hosting lfms like "flagging+raid, join for all or for none". Not only once, sometimes for few days in row. And noone even hit lfm.

Yeah, probably i got a-hole reputation. Yeah, probably i don't know how to host encouraging lfms. Yeah, i don't play in peak hours. Deepest apologies for still being here.

[JOTMON]

If you're not going to combine servers, we really need to do away with the whole flagging mechanism. I'm tired of missing raids that are only run every few days because I'm not flagged at the time or waiting forever to even get a shroud run filled because no one else is flagged at the time.

It wasn't a great mechanism to begin with and at this point it's nothing but additional, unnecessary sand in already drying gears. It's past time to let it go and give people the chance to jump into raid groups when they come up.

To the paladins - let me save your time. I know: "blah blah blah in my day", "blah blah blah tradition", "blah blah blah guild runs", "blah blah blah I can flag in two minutes, so should you."

Get over yourselves.

Seriously.

Get.

Over.

Yourselves.

If you want the game to survive, let people play. Stop holding us back.

To SSG - more raids means more people buying raid by-pass timers. You're not going to make any more money protecting this dinosaur; you'll only lose money you could be making.


well, if you cant be bothered to put up a group for higher level difficulty flagging.. flag yourself on casual.

There was talk by devs of modifying some of the raids to a permanent sigil that keeps you flagged through TR lives and such.. This way you would only ever 'have to' flag once.

DDO could speed up the process in the interim by selling Flagging bypasses in the store.

[Saekee]

well, if you cant be bothered to put up a group for higher level difficulty flagging.. flag yourself on casual.

There was talk by devs of modifying some of the raids to a permanent sigil that keeps you flagged through TR lives and such.. This way you would only ever 'have to' flag once.

DDO could speed up the process in the interim by selling Flagging bypasses in the store.

That seems like a great solution--like a sigil.

'Flagging bypass:' coffee

[Enoach]

Just going to point out that one of the advantages of having multiple characters to pick from is that you have a higher likelihood to have a character "flagged and ready" when an LFM is put up.

[Morroiel]

Flagging all raids (even titan included) takes ~ 2.5-3 hours of playing (assuming von / gh / vale / necro 4 done - as those are standard leveling quests that almost everybody runs). If you are just going for high impacts (doj, leg shroud, MoD, deathwyrm, fire peaks, and Riding the Storm Out) it takes literally less than an hour and a half:

These are my recent times flagging an old alt(2 of them are approx):
1) Leg Shroud Flag - Creeping Death (21 min and change), to curse the sky (9 min and change)
2) Deathwyrm and Fire Peaks Flag (~4-6 minutes; can be faster if you have monk speed/recall)
3) MoD flag - w/ guildies/friends (<8 min counting running to quest time) pre-completing each quests so all you have to do is step in, w/o guildies (~20 minutes total for all of them not counting running time)
4) DoJ Flag - Trials (6 min and change), Assault (9 min and change), Details (12 min and change), could be cut down to ~8 min total with guildie precompletion method used in necro
5) Riding the Storm Out - newcomers (11 min and change), black and blue (12 min and change) {on a side note there's a chance these don't even need to be done for the flag, I've never checked}

In short, if you are going to do lots of endgame raiding there are hardly any roadblocks big enough to prevent you in the form of flagging mechanics. (necro 4 heroic is the possible exception)

The only flagging mechanic I'd personally want done away is the requirement of creeping death, as that quest is literally one of the worst quests ever made in ddo for lack of creativity and forced clearing mechanics with time gating.

[Yamani]

If you're not going to combine servers, we really need to do away with the whole flagging mechanism. I'm tired of missing raids that are only run every few days because I'm not flagged at the time or waiting forever to even get a shroud run filled because no one else is flagged at the time.

It wasn't a great mechanism to begin with and at this point it's nothing but additional, unnecessary sand in already drying gears. It's past time to let it go and give people the chance to jump into raid groups when they come up.

To the paladins - let me save your time. I know: "blah blah blah in my day", "blah blah blah tradition", "blah blah blah guild runs", "blah blah blah I can flag in two minutes, so should you."

Get over yourselves.

Seriously.

Get.

Over.

Yourselves.

If you want the game to survive, let people play. Stop holding us back.

To SSG - more raids means more people buying raid by-pass timers. You're not going to make any more money protecting this dinosaur; you'll only lose money you could be making.
Flagging is still a thing because technically it is a story line. It's like reading a book. You don't just skip to the end knowing everything in the middle and beginning. I could agree with permanent flagging over TR lives but all new characters should have to run the flagging at least once as in role play terms they wouldn't know why they where doing the raid in the first place. As this game is loosely based off of DnD it is a good mechanic, it is the player base that is so old and used to it they got tired of rerunning flagging quests.

P.S. The game won't die if you don't get your way.

[tralfaz81]

P.S. I need to get over myself.

Changing to fit the needs of the 2017 game by dumping some of the 2007 mechanisms isn't "my way," it's good business sense.

P.S. I don't think we have 25% of the population now as we did when I started playing. The game ain't dead, but it's not exactly going to get up and dance a little jig anytime soon...without some serious changes.

[Mandelia]

Flagging and completion numbers should survive past reincarnations. As long as we are all on the hamster wheel, raids will be a curiosity rather than a mainstay. No one has any impetus to flag every single life for every raid since no one runs them with any regularity and they soon lose their completions towards the magic 20 anyways.

[PermaBanned]

If you want the game to survive...
If the game started out looking like a Mack truck, but ends up looking like a Volkswagen bug...
did it really survive?

[Yamani]

Changing to fit the needs of the 2017 game by dumping some of the 2007 mechanisms isn't "my way," it's good business sense.

P.S. I don't think we have 25% of the population now as we did when I started playing. The game ain't dead, but it's not exactly going to get up and dance a little jig anytime soon...without some serious changes.

Telling me to get over myself is just proof of ignorance. Dropping the mechanic isn't good business sense. Selling items to bypass raid flagging is. But like I said, this is a role playing game based around DnD which is essentially story telling. As others have stated it takes no time at all to run something on casual/normal to quickly flag.

Here is the business model you are proposing:
Skip button so I dont have to play(which defeats the point of a video game)
You've now run the raid. now you have nothing to do.
Move onto new game.

Most of the 75% (you claim) have left because they have nothing left to do. To them there is no challenge for them. Look at what happened when reaper came out, quite a few players came back just to check out the new difficulty. Then leveled back down as they figured it out and returned to the state of having nothing to do. Adding a "skip" raid flagging just increases the rate of leaving with nothing left to do.

[C-Dog]

I'm from europe. Yeah, it's american game, everyone else shouldn't play it. Sorry, my fault. I should move to US to be able to play it.
Whoever, ever, says something like this is not worth the time to consider them. Scrape them off your heel and walk on.

(But you ~should~ visit.)

[nokowi]

Now i'm pretty sure you're describing yourself, cause you're showing no basic knowledge how dragging party through entire flag works.

I'm from europe. Yeah, it's american game, everyone else shouldn't play it. Sorry, my fault. I should move to US to be able to play it.


The idea that the OP has to stand at a raid because people need to flag is a logic failure. If those players exist, posting a flagging quest solves the problem. If they don't exist, removing flagging won't help.

The solution is to flag on your own if you intend to join a raid, and to post a flagging LFM before a raid if you plan to lead one and want additional players.

What we have is some players that can't be bothered to flag for a raid as part of their normal leveling process. Catering to this crowd will be a downward spiral for DDO, as it won't stop with flagging quests.

Better game design would get more people interested in raiding - a much better solution than catering to those not willing to make any effort.


Then we have the group that thinks there is a huge group of people wanting to flag that haven't. I find this to be unlikely, as people know how to post an LFM if there is a group of people wanting to flag.

[tralfaz81]

The idea that the OP has to stand at a raid because people need to flag is a logic failure. If those players exist, posting a flagging quest solves the problem. If they don't exist, removing flagging won't help.

The solution is to flag on your own if you intend to join a raid, and to post a flagging LFM before a raid if you plan to lead one and want additional players.

What we have is some players that can't be bothered to flag for a raid as part of their normal leveling process. Catering to this crowd will be a downward spiral for DDO, as it won't stop with flagging quests.

Better game design would get more people interested in raiding - a much better solution than catering to those not willing to make any effort.


Then we have the group that thinks there is a huge group of people wanting to flag that haven't. I find this to be unlikely, as people know how to post an LFM if there is a group of people wanting to flag.

No offense meant on this one, but thinking people won't run quests any more because they don't have to flag for raids is (your words) a logic failure. Without a stack of raid by pass timers, we still need quests to advance, level up and TR.

This may come off as sarcastic, but it's honestly not meant to be. You have to consider the following facts:

Not everybody is you.
Not everybody is on a well populated server.
Not everybody is in the same time zones.
Not everybody has hours and hours to play every day.
Not everybody is uber.
Not everybody can run the flagging quests in minutes.
Not everybody is at the same level at the same time.

I have put up at least a dozen raid LFMs in the past two months and only two of them have filled; and those two took at least an hour to get the bare minimum of people to run the raid. I've gone as far as not leveling up for a day just to try and run a raid and still never got to run it.

Many (if not most) of us only have an hour or two to play a day. More often than not, you have enough time to run the raid and not much of anything else. Let alone helping someone else run all the flagging quests you've already run, let alone helping two groups of other people run the flagging quests to fill out the raid.

So I ask my guild members if they want to run - answer is pretty much always the same (as well as when they ask me the same question) "would love to, not flagged."

You pull up the "who" list, there's maybe two dozen people in your level range if you're lucky. You start hitting up the people who aren't in the middle of quests - "you want to run this raid?" "I would love to...but not flagged."

And that's the cold, hard bottom line that defenders need to accept. There are no longer hundreds of people on line in the same level range as there were in the golden age. If you're lucky (very lucky), you might find two dozen people in your level range (less so if they want reaper because not everyone is flagging at level, they're still flagging at BB levels).

Stop blaming the victim. Dropping flagging wouldn't hurt the game in the slightest. We're still going to turn around and run the other quests anyways, we need the XP. If they're not going to merge servers, getting rid of flagging would make the game more accessible to the widest range of players and playing styles instead of catering to the snobs.

[nokowi]

I have put up at least a dozen raid LFMs in the past two months and only two of them have filled; and those two took at least an hour to get the bare minimum of people to run the raid. I've gone as far as not leveling up for a day just to try and run a raid and still never got to run it.

And yet you think it is because of flagging. Flagging did not change between the time you could find raids and not find them.

What did change?

I hear your issue, but I think you haven't thought this one through very well - and have leapt to your own preconceived notion.

What do you believe is the cause of the CHANGE? (hint: pick something that changed)

[nokowi]

Dropping flagging wouldn't hurt the game in the slightest. We're still going to turn around and run the other quests anyways, we need the XP. If they're not going to merge servers, getting rid of flagging would make the game more accessible to the widest range of players and playing styles instead of catering to the snobs.

Or they could just give people reasons to raid again.

The racial reincarnation, RXP rewards, and loot rewards just don't give people good reasons to raid right now.

I remember when the game was so trivial that having to stop and open doors was the big problem on the forums. Removing them wouldn't have harmed anything, of course, according to players. The fix was a simple as making the quests challenging enough that waiting on doors was far less of a priority. It's called cause and effect.

The cause was not flagging, it was a change in rewards that pushed people out of raids. Giving people more reasons to run raids is the best solution.

[JOTMON]

Just going to point out that one of the advantages of having multiple characters to pick from is that you have a higher likelihood to have a character "flagged and ready" when an LFM is put up.

problem here is our alts have been converted into pack mules since the grind between the 'xxx' completionists and the alts is getting to be too big of a divide that its not feasible to play alts anymore.
Playing alts is a waste of time effort and resources with the game direction that the Dev's have decided to take with heavy per character XP requirements for things like Reaper and the maxed out past lives..
Players that used to play alts and had multiple TR's, store, pot and time ivnested on alts are now regretting their decisions to spread their money and time across multiple toons instead of focussed attention on their main toons.

If these had of been account based then players could have viable alts to invest in.

[Jasparion]

If you're not going to combine servers, we really need to do away with the whole flagging mechanism. I'm tired of missing raids that are only run every few days because I'm not flagged at the time or waiting forever to even get a shroud run filled because no one else is flagged at the time.

It wasn't a great mechanism to begin with and at this point it's nothing but additional, unnecessary sand in already drying gears. It's past time to let it go and give people the chance to jump into raid groups when they come up.

To the paladins - let me save your time. I know: "blah blah blah in my day", "blah blah blah tradition", "blah blah blah guild runs", "blah blah blah I can flag in two minutes, so should you."

Get over yourselves.

Seriously.

Get.

Over.

Yourselves.

If you want the game to survive, let people play. Stop holding us back.

To SSG - more raids means more people buying raid by-pass timers. You're not going to make any more money protecting this dinosaur; you'll only lose money you could be making.

TLDR; Im lazy and I wants my free stuffz nwo !!!111

[SerPounce]

Agree with most of the responses. I don't have a problem with simplifying or removing flagging, but I hardly think that flagging is what is holding people back from running raids.

I think keeping raid completions though TR would do more to encourage raiding than reducing flagging. Running a raid a few times a life for that .5% chance of the item you want dropping in your name feels pretty hopeless. If you could move towards a 20th list through TR I'd feel a lot more incentive to tack on completions

[Gremmlynn]

Telling me to get over myself is just proof of ignorance. Dropping the mechanic isn't good business sense. Selling items to bypass raid flagging is. But like I said, this is a role playing game based around DnD which is essentially story telling. As others have stated it takes no time at all to run something on casual/normal to quickly flag.

Here is the business model you are proposing:
Skip button so I dont have to play(which defeats the point of a video game)
You've now run the raid. now you have nothing to do.
Move onto new game.

Most of the 75% (you claim) have left because they have nothing left to do. To them there is no challenge for them. Look at what happened when reaper came out, quite a few players came back just to check out the new difficulty. Then leveled back down as they figured it out and returned to the state of having nothing to do. Adding a "skip" raid flagging just increases the rate of leaving with nothing left to do.Personally, I could see flagging dropped for raids after a certain point, especially raids that can't really be considered end game (with possibly case by case exceptions). That, or significantly raise drop rates for those raids. Or both.

While the story line is a consideration, I think practicality trumps it. Spending a lot of time to just flag for a raid in which any loot is likely to be out leveled by the time one gets it - or even taking into account future lives, will generally only be good for a short period, if at all - just isn't a practical thing to do. Being able to hit any raid in one's level range while in the leveling process, as a change of pace from the normal grind, seems to me to be a more practical plan if they want the raids run at all really.

The flagging content, from a developers standpoint, is mostly to slow players down in the latest content released to give time to develop more. With older/lower level content, it actually could get in the way of it being any sort of time sink at all by making the raid itself not worth the trouble to run. As it's original incentives, top end loot mostly, really no longer apply, or don't apply for long enough to bother getting.

[Tat2Freak]

That seems like a great solution--like a sigil.

https://s26.postimg.org/68ozbboc9/Sigil_of_Dal_Quor.png


What has been is what will be,and what has been done is what will be done,and there is nothing new under the sun. (E1.9)

[zehnvhex]

So...

Just a question here for those of you in favor of leaving flagging for quests in the game:

Why?

Just gonna put this out there. I get that it isn't terribly difficult and that you have no problems getting it done but if they came out and said, "In u38 you no longer need to flag for Abbot/Shroud/etc..."

Would you be upset and why? What is so compelling about being asked to run VoN1~4 first in order to do VoN5? Especially if, like many people you've done VoN1~4 probably over 100 times each by now.

It's not for the story or lore, that ship has pretty much sailed. Challenge? Can be done on casual. "Because I had to do it so you have to do it too?" That's hardly a good reason to leave crappy mechanics in the game. I had to re-get all my tomes the first time I did a reincarnation. Didn't take them long to have tomes persist through reincarnations...maybe they should have kept it the old crummy way?

When's the last time you did Stealer of Souls? Anybody? Bueller?

Thanks!

[Brandwynn]

I hear the pain. To be honest. I did not know about flagging. Hey, I run a lot of solo. That for the most part Raiding with my guild is simply new for me. I played as a premium for years. Without a guild and had even less time then I do now.

I take the game as a distraction and relaxation. If I really want to raid. And I can not find anyone. That means, I will find something else to do with my time. As to whether the flagging system should be done away with. I think everyone has made a great argument for and against.

Ultimately, whether the Flagging system stays or goes is not in our hands, but in the Devs.. Praise to them and may they drop the best loot on us all.

What is the answer. Until or unless the SSG decides to do something. In the short term and most likely long term. We will have to take into account that not everyone flags or might even care to do so. That is the reality of the game.

Though that does not mean you need to be quiet or even abandon your opinion and position. I would like to see wizards to get the familiars. But for now that is not even on the radar, really. And yes I would love to see a DDO 2.0 as well. Again that is not on radar. But that does not mean we should not be thinking and talking about these things either.

Happy hunting and may your sacks of plat be ever full and the rust monster far away.

[Tat2Freak]

Praise to them and may they drop the best loot on us all.
https://s26.postimg.org/5zvzz50xl/ferris-bueller-color-portrait.jpg

[Brandwynn]

https://s26.postimg.org/5zvzz50xl/ferris-bueller-color-portrait.jpg



:d

[Whitering]

I basically never run Abbott because of the sigil pieces, I now have 2 of every piece but no desire to waste them while tring because of the first time I did it. It was so painful that I didn't tr for months and just ran to cap and epic tred 3 times so I didn't have to reflag for that f'ing raid lol

I don't mind the quest flags, but some of them have very, very tough solo mechanics and ya, I've had to go the hireling route to get Flesh done, and well, if you can't cast, arcane wand or scroll you are screwed on Inferno.

As far as the other ones, I think Spider Queen takes too long, it's huge quest chain and I don't even bother with it all when epicing. ToD has one really sucky quest in it, but is soloable, unfortunately the loot is not worth it.

Hell, that's raiding in general, unless you get hugely lucky, you don't get anything. The newer raids have kind of fixed this by having raid currency, but who wants to do 20 of a raid before getting the item they want, which might not even show up, before tring? I did that for Demon Queen and burn through raid bypass. I might have quite the game if the Torc wasn't there on the end list. At least the currency carries over to next life.

[Gremmlynn]

if you can't cast, arcane wand or scroll you are screwed on Inferno.Meh, it's annoying holding shift atop a torch, but I'd hardly call it being screwed.

[Enoach]

problem here is our alts have been converted into pack mules since the grind between the 'xxx' completionists and the alts is getting to be too big of a divide that its not feasible to play alts anymore.
Playing alts is a waste of time effort and resources with the game direction that the Dev's have decided to take with heavy per character XP requirements for things like Reaper and the maxed out past lives..
Players that used to play alts and had multiple TR's, store, pot and time ivnested on alts are now regretting their decisions to spread their money and time across multiple toons instead of focussed attention on their main toons.

If these had of been account based then players could have viable alts to invest in.

As someone that has 6 characters all with different numbers of past lives, and as someone that enjoys playing all of them I'm going to have to disagree with you about the divide. Partly because the divide is not as big as some make it out to be. Might I point out the arguments about how we have had First Life Warlocks being discussed as OP here in the forums or when Shiradi-Undead Wizards or Tree Builds.

So while you have deemed alternate characters as something to regret, myself I don't find that to be true.

------------
Now to the question of "If they removed flagging, would I be upset". Actually, I would be disappointed. Why disappointed? Because flagging is a symptom of the issue of raiding not the actual problem.

Why do I not see flagging as the problem? If flagging was a problem then raids like Chronoscope, Tempest Spine, Legendary Tempest Spine, Hound of Xoriat, Legendary Hound of Xoriat, Vision of Destruction, and Riding out the Storm by the set logic would not be suffering issues with getting groups for raiding.

To a small extent Fire on Thunder Peak and Temple of the Deathwyrm which have an explorer area flagging mechanic which can be completed quickly would not be a deterrent to raiding.

But since we don't see these raids being regularly run we can logically assume there is an other reason that transcends flagging

[vryxnr]

It's not for the story or lore, that ship has pretty much sailed.

I still care about the story and lore. I still run them in order when possible, just for fun, even if I'm already flagged. Please don't speak for me.


When's the last time you did Stealer of Souls? Anybody? Bueller?

Last week actually. Was fun.

[SpartanKiller13]

My problem with flagging isn't so much that it's hard, but that it's not doable when necessary. When an LFM pops for HShroud and I'm 3 quests into the Vale, there's no way I'll make it. I don't have any option to run that raid. I wouldn't mind having to run the quests afterwards in order to get my Raid reward, but the issue for me is that raid LFM's are rare and random while flagging isn't always my priority.


I like flagging mechanism, i really do. But on the other hand - if i have a choice: cool mechanic that makes filling raids impossible and no flagging and ability to run raids from time to time - i choose the second.

Makes sense to me. I rarely join raids in my level range because I'm rarely flagged.


well, if you cant be bothered to put up a group for higher level difficulty flagging.. flag yourself on casual.

There was talk by devs of modifying some of the raids to a permanent sigil that keeps you flagged through TR lives and such.. This way you would only ever 'have to' flag once.

DDO could speed up the process in the interim by selling Flagging bypasses in the store.

The problem with flagging isn't that it's hard, it's that it takes a bunch of time. If there's an LFM up for a raid and you're not flagged, too bad. Casual or not, you're not going to be in time for that LFM.

BB and Reaper meta makes running Casual a pain, although I've run a few quests as such just for flagging.

I'm 100% behind sigil-based raid flagging.


Just going to point out that one of the advantages of having multiple characters to pick from is that you have a higher likelihood to have a character "flagged and ready" when an LFM is put up.

And one of the disadvantages is that any BtC gear you get will be on the wrong character. Also you miss out on the xp etc if you're parking your character just to run the raid.


Flagging all raids (even titan included) takes ~ 2.5-3 hours of playing (assuming von / gh / vale / necro 4 done - as those are standard leveling quests that almost everybody runs). If you are just going for high impacts (doj, leg shroud, MoD, deathwyrm, fire peaks, and Riding the Storm Out) it takes literally less than an hour and a half:

These are my recent times flagging an old alt(2 of them are approx):
1) Leg Shroud Flag - Creeping Death (21 min and change), to curse the sky (9 min and change)
2) Deathwyrm and Fire Peaks Flag (~4-6 minutes; can be faster if you have monk speed/recall)
3) MoD flag - w/ guildies/friends (<8 min counting running to quest time) pre-completing each quests so all you have to do is step in, w/o guildies (~20 minutes total for all of them not counting running time)
4) DoJ Flag - Trials (6 min and change), Assault (9 min and change), Details (12 min and change), could be cut down to ~8 min total with guildie precompletion method used in necro
5) Riding the Storm Out - newcomers (11 min and change), black and blue (12 min and change) {on a side note there's a chance these don't even need to be done for the flag, I've never checked}


I'll guarantee that I'd take longer than that. Also not all of us conveniently have a person in their pocket to run all the prework (that magical guildy mentioned). Even so, 3 hours of speedrunning casual quests isn't something i'm interested in.

[nokowi]

So...

Just a question here for those of you in favor of leaving flagging for quests in the game:

Why?


A game like DDO is best designed when it tries to meet many different preferences, without catering to just one preference.

DDO has already catered to the crowd that has to be able to solo everything, and the crowd that thinks grouping should be something that requires zero change in their own play. We can't have one "protect x" quest without someone complaining about its existence in less than 1% of quests. The demand is continual to design the game around only one persons preference.

Insert bravery streak where you all ignore what each other needs and satisfy your own streak. Flagging is a pooling of players interested in a particular raid, much like a daily reward pools players to the highest XP/time quests.

Removing flagging is yet another step towards a game that has players that are completely unable to make play choices to help each other out.

Listen to what the people in this thread say. "I rarely ever bother to flag" and then "I can't run the raid when it pops up". If flagging is easy to do, what it boils down to is asking for a game that continually caters to those unable to plan or alter their play for the benefit of all.

Flagging for raids gives an alternate pull from simply going for the max xp/min quests that are normally run. Remove flagging and the set of available quests for grouping will drop.

Better reasons to raid are all that are really needed. The most difficult to flag or get to could use simpler mechanisms (faster transport, etc), but I see no reason to remove flagging. Next up will be not having to run from house to house, not having to travel through wilderness areas to get to a quest, not having to go to a mailbox, not having to wait to rest, not having to find collectibles, and not having anything to do anything else that gets you play the game. DDO does not have the amount of content to remove all these things, nor will it benefit from catering to this level of entitlement.

Why do you need flagging removed should be higher priority than what would it harm. The total of all the "harmless" suggestions to not make players have to do anything will be the loss of things to do in-game.

Is opening a door any fun? Let's remove all those from quests. Listening to dialogue? We've heard it before - that should go too. In fact, we have ran that same quest 100 times, so how about we just run to the end and get the reward without making us complete that content yet again (see the same arguments about why we shouldn't have to run flagging quests - we've run it before, it's nothing new, etc". Next up will be faster run speeds through an empty quest since it just takes to long to run from A to B. It literally will never end, and there needs to be a very good argument why a specific change is needed.

[Gljosh]

Well lets look at the majority of the Raid Flagging (23-raids)
Vision of Destruction/Hound of Xoriat/Legendary Hound of Xoriat/Tempest Spine/Legendary Tempest Spine/The Chronoscope/Riding the Storm Out-no flagging. (7/23)

Deathwyrm/Fire on Thunder Peak-kill a "rare" in the Wilderness Area (2/23)

Legendary Shroud-complete 2 quests (1/23)

DoJ/Master Arti/Lord of Blade/Fall of Truth/Reaver's Fate/Zawabi's Revenge/The Titan Awakes-complete 3 quests (6/23)

MoD-complete 4 quests (1/23)

Vault of Night/Tower of Despair/The Shroud-complete 5 quests (3/23)

Ascension Chamber-complete 4 quests (normally twice to complete the Sigil) then complete the same quest 4 more times so lets call that 12 quests(1/23)

Caught in the Web-15 quests (1/23)-YIKES!

The real problem is that most of these Raids are dead, the loot is outdated OR most of the players have what they need from them. Pre MoTu The Shroud was run almost everyday on my server, MA/LoB/VoD/HoX/VoN/RF/ZR about 2 times a week.

Now I see the newest Raid run A LOT the first couple of weeks, then players hit run 20 and get what they want.

[tralfaz81]

Agree with most of the responses. I don't have a problem with simplifying or removing flagging, but I hardly think that flagging is what is holding people back from running raids.

I think keeping raid completions though TR would do more to encourage raiding than reducing flagging. Running a raid a few times a life for that .5% chance of the item you want dropping in your name feels pretty hopeless. If you could move towards a 20th list through TR I'd feel a lot more incentive to tack on completions

There are a number of little changes that would go a long ways towards improving the game with our present server populations.

As mentioned by a few people - I could completely get behind accumulative flagging. Either flagging carries over with TRing, or you can stock up on specific quest drops that substitute for flagging. The stones from the Vale would be a perfect example. Basically a Shavarath Signet Stone could be (should be) used to open up the shroud without having to run all the quests each life. If you end up running Coal twice one life, it'll give you the option to skip it the next. You'd still have to run all the quests one time per life you want to flag, but being able to bank quest runs could help you out for quicker flagging in the future.

It also wouldn't hurt to make all raid items BTA instead of BTC. BTA would at least give us the option (and challenge of) making static toons to run raids with where it's easier to group but you don't have to worry about pulling that one thing you need for one toon with the wrong toon.

Better raid rewards, obviously, are overdue.

Across the board removal of the flagging mechanism might be extreme, but it's an area that needs some improvement that SSG should seriously consider tweaking the existing system.

[Kaisheng21]

Ok, so let's look at this from SSG's point of view. You want them to implement an accumulate raid flagging system/remove flagging and update the loot, and players will start running the old raids again? Cool. Players get new loot, and run different raids, and SSG gets... hmm. What does SSG get from this again? What incentive do they have to spend this amount of time on rewriting raids and mechanics? Players already have these packs. It would probably just be easier and more profitable to implement a system like this for newer raids and borrow mechanics from older ones to satisfy the nostalgia-hunters.

TL;DR: Good ideas here, would be nice for players but SSG has no reason to do it.

[BigErkyKid]

Is opening a door any fun? Let's remove all those from quests. Listening to dialogue? We've heard it before - that should go too. In fact, we have ran that same quest 100 times, so how about we just run to the end and get the reward without making us complete that content yet again (see the same arguments about why we shouldn't have to run flagging quests - we've run it before, it's nothing new, etc". Next up will be faster run speeds through an empty quest since it just takes to long to run from A to B. It literally will never end, and there needs to be a very good argument why a specific change is needed.

Frankly a lot of creativity on the player's behalf goes precisely towards avoiding having to replay content. If something can be skipped / shortened significantly, most people do.

The issue is when the game is just a hamster wheel, and content is not played for the sake of content. And that happens when rewards are coded for repetition x100.

If we hadn't had to play every quest in the game dozens or hundreds of times over the course of TRs, it would likely be more fresh now.

I don't have a good solution for this issue (more content, duh! more randomization, duh! and so on), but it certainly is a big problem.

Now as for flagging, I'd like for it to persist through TRs with a sigil. I hardly see a downside to it and it is not like lore matters the 99th time.

[BigErkyKid]

Ok, so let's look at this from SSG's point of view. You want them to implement an accumulate raid flagging system/remove flagging and update the loot, and players will start running the old raids again? Cool. Players get new loot, and run different raids, and SSG gets... hmm. What does SSG get from this again? What incentive do they have to spend this amount of time on rewriting raids and mechanics? Players already have these packs. It would probably just be easier and more profitable to implement a system like this for newer raids and borrow mechanics from older ones to satisfy the nostalgia-hunters.

TL;DR: Good ideas here, would be nice for players but SSG has no reason to do it.

More people playing, game is more fun, more VIPs, more likelihood to buy new packs (because you are playing), and all the cash grabs from the store.

[Qhualor]

removing choice doesn't always provide players with more choices.

look at the current state of the game. its the same as it was for the past several years. the reincarnation hamster wheel is dominant and merging servers or removing raid flagging or making the flags persist through TRs isn't really going to help anything. as I have said before, when new content is released, a lot of players will pause their reincarnation cycle long enough to get what they want and than after a few months it gets harder and harder to form raid groups and groups to flag for quests. flagging for raids like Deathwyrm are easy because the slayer is still pretty popular. flagging for Von is easy because all the quests are fast and easy and Von 3 and 4 are known xp quests. other raids are not easy to flag or form because the xp and/or the loot isn't considered worth the bother like the older ones. even Shroud saw a sharp decline despite many I have come across that would like some GS items, they just don't want to flag for it for a variety of reasons despite those flaggers being good xp quests for leveling.

these complaints on flagging for raids didn't become very vocal until after reincarnation became a popular trend, even back when the population was still high.

[scipiojedi]

I have a simple solution. Bump up the xp on raids massively, so it becomes part of people's leveling process. You'd have to be completely inane not to flag for the raids if the xp was bonkers.

[Enoach]

More people playing, game is more fun, more VIPs, more likelihood to buy new packs (because you are playing), and all the cash grabs from the store.

Ok, there we have it, add the ability of a VIP to skip the flagging needed for one raid per account per day much like the daily challenges. An incentive to be VIP - Something a player can use and something the would benefit SSG as well as giving VIP a benefit. Why only once per day? To make it attractive but not a requirement.

Something for everyone.

[whoolsey]

No offense meant on this one, but thinking people won't run quests any more because they don't have to flag for raids is (your words) a logic failure. Without a stack of raid by pass timers, we still need quests to advance, level up and TR.

This may come off as sarcastic, but it's honestly not meant to be. You have to consider the following facts:

Not everybody is you.
Not everybody is on a well populated server.
Not everybody is in the same time zones.
Not everybody has hours and hours to play every day.
Not everybody is uber.
Not everybody can run the flagging quests in minutes.
Not everybody is at the same level at the same time.

I have put up at least a dozen raid LFMs in the past two months and only two of them have filled; and those two took at least an hour to get the bare minimum of people to run the raid. I've gone as far as not leveling up for a day just to try and run a raid and still never got to run it.

Many (if not most) of us only have an hour or two to play a day. More often than not, you have enough time to run the raid and not much of anything else. Let alone helping someone else run all the flagging quests you've already run, let alone helping two groups of other people run the flagging quests to fill out the raid.

So I ask my guild members if they want to run - answer is pretty much always the same (as well as when they ask me the same question) "would love to, not flagged."

You pull up the "who" list, there's maybe two dozen people in your level range if you're lucky. You start hitting up the people who aren't in the middle of quests - "you want to run this raid?" "I would love to...but not flagged."

And that's the cold, hard bottom line that defenders need to accept. There are no longer hundreds of people on line in the same level range as there were in the golden age. If you're lucky (very lucky), you might find two dozen people in your level range (less so if they want reaper because not everyone is flagging at level, they're still flagging at BB levels).

Stop blaming the victim. Dropping flagging wouldn't hurt the game in the slightest. We're still going to turn around and run the other quests anyways, we need the XP. If they're not going to merge servers, getting rid of flagging would make the game more accessible to the widest range of players and playing styles instead of catering to the snobs.

I agree on your points there, during past life farming it has no use flagging, you'll lose it anyway, could be on a build that sucks for that raid, be on exp pots and don't wan't to waste time on a raid that might fail anyway, etc.
Have you considered the alternative btw? people might not be interested and claim they're not flagged?



problem here is our alts have been converted into pack mules since the grind between the 'xxx' completionists and the alts is getting to be too big of a divide that its not feasible to play alts anymore.
Playing alts is a waste of time effort and resources with the game direction that the Dev's have decided to take with heavy per character XP requirements for things like Reaper and the maxed out past lives..
Players that used to play alts and had multiple TR's, store, pot and time ivnested on alts are now regretting their decisions to spread their money and time across multiple toons instead of focussed attention on their main toons.

If these had of been account based then players could have viable alts to invest in.
they should make past lives and reaper points accessible to all third life alts to remedy that.




Well lets look at the majority of the Raid Flagging (23-raids)
Vision of Destruction/Hound of Xoriat/Legendary Hound of Xoriat/Tempest Spine/Legendary Tempest Spine/The Chronoscope/Riding the Storm Out-no flagging. (7/23)

Deathwyrm/Fire on Thunder Peak-kill a "rare" in the Wilderness Area (2/23)

Legendary Shroud-complete 2 quests (1/23)

DoJ/Master Arti/Lord of Blade/Fall of Truth/Reaver's Fate/Zawabi's Revenge/The Titan Awakes-complete 3 quests (6/23)

MoD-complete 4 quests (1/23)

Vault of Night/Tower of Despair/The Shroud-complete 5 quests (3/23)

Ascension Chamber-complete 4 quests (normally twice to complete the Sigil) then complete the same quest 4 more times so lets call that 12 quests(1/23)

Caught in the Web-15 quests (1/23)-YIKES!

The real problem is that most of these Raids are dead, the loot is outdated OR most of the players have what they need from them. Pre MoTu The Shroud was run almost everyday on my server, MA/LoB/VoD/HoX/VoN/RF/ZR about 2 times a week.

Now I see the newest Raid run A LOT the first couple of weeks, then players hit run 20 and get what they want.

That's been the issue since motu... a few years ago.

Now tralfaz81,

What is my hook? why should i care? i have every relevant loot item in the game,
90% of the loot from older raids is surpassed at level, all i could use is some of the newer raid ingredients, however, the content is unplayable, stuff hits to hard for a melee, now add in reaper mode, wich the end game raiding scene would love to run for more power creep reaper points and things get unworkable for a lot of classes.
Same thing will happen for the expansion, ravenloft will not see the numbers it did for motu(let alone heroic shroud), the way development is going.

Why spend money and time when i can't take my toons nor my friends in there?
Before changing flagging they should address the terrible imbalance in:
1, some of the newer elite quests,
2, the legendary quests and raids,
3, the lazily done reaper mode.

Once that is done there is reason to talk about flagging again.
Remember, a near empty raids is a near empty raid, regardless of flagging

[Yamani]

Personally, I could see flagging dropped for raids after a certain point, especially raids that can't really be considered end game (with possibly case by case exceptions). That, or significantly raise drop rates for those raids. Or both.

While the story line is a consideration, I think practicality trumps it. Spending a lot of time to just flag for a raid in which any loot is likely to be out leveled by the time one gets it - or even taking into account future lives, will generally only be good for a short period, if at all - just isn't a practical thing to do. Being able to hit any raid in one's level range while in the leveling process, as a change of pace from the normal grind, seems to me to be a more practical plan if they want the raids run at all really.

The flagging content, from a developers standpoint, is mostly to slow players down in the latest content released to give time to develop more. With older/lower level content, it actually could get in the way of it being any sort of time sink at all by making the raid itself not worth the trouble to run. As it's original incentives, top end loot mostly, really no longer apply, or don't apply for long enough to bother getting.

Yea that's why I said in my first post that permanent flagging over TR lives is much better.

For most raids I flag as I level up including for VoN, shroud, legendary shroud, ToD(occasionally when I need yugo pots),Reavers Fate, Defiler and ADQ(sometimes if I feel like dealing with chains of flame). If I'm going to epic cap I also flag for Citw, the fall of truth, and occasionally MoD.
For the most part I flag for all these raids, because all those pre quests give good/great xp at the level they are. As for the epic ones, I run those for sure for the saga's.

Now it comes down to why run the raids? My crafted gear is better then most of the old raid gear with a few exceptions and stuff I can't craft. Some raids are so outdated they don't even have working gear anymore with the current system(ToD rings dont work with handwraps anymore). I will admit I don't know the Titan raid as I was never able to find a group/time to learn it. Reavers fate id run maybe 1 in every 10 lives just for the small chance of madstone boots that life. VoN Id run if there was a group up for it. but id mostly save it for epic for xp. The rest come down to if I'm doing anything/bored enough to run them and there is an lfm up for them.

[bracelet]

Ok, so let's look at this from SSG's point of view. You want them to implement an accumulate raid flagging system/remove flagging and update the loot, and players will start running the old raids again? Cool. Players get new loot, and run different raids, and SSG gets... hmm. What does SSG get from this again? What incentive do they have to spend this amount of time on rewriting raids and mechanics? Players already have these packs. It would probably just be easier and more profitable to implement a system like this for newer raids and borrow mechanics from older ones to satisfy the nostalgia-hunters.

TL;DR: Good ideas here, would be nice for players but SSG has no reason to do it.

I believe a lot of the raids in the game are in packs that one has to pay for. If people actually ran them, new players, such as there are, might be tempted to buy them. As it is right now, I haven't seen *any* raid, except heroic Tempest Spine, posted in weeks. Ironically that one requires no flagging. Coincidence?

[whoolsey]

I believe a lot of the raids in the game are in packs that one has to pay for. If people actually ran them, new players, such as there are, might be tempted to buy them. As it is right now, I haven't seen *any* raid, except heroic Tempest Spine, posted in weeks. Ironically that one requires no flagging. Coincidence?

Coincidence?
Technically yes, you need a far larger sample size and more data to make any kind of worthwhile conclusion.

As for newer player, would recomend they:
A, get the hell out of this dead game,
B, tell them to buy packs that are relevant in terms of gear, exp and how often they are still run.

[nokowi]

Frankly a lot of creativity on the player's behalf goes precisely towards avoiding having to replay content. If something can be skipped / shortened significantly, most people do.

Yes, and then they complain about having to repeat the same stuff more often. All of the forum posts go into the category of replaying even less content even more. They are not real solutions.





The issue is when the game is just a hamster wheel, and content is not played for the sake of content. And that happens when rewards are coded for repetition x100.

And yet player suggestions want to remove anything other than completing x content in less time. This results is more repetition, not less. They've done everything before, so they shouldn't have to do literally anything you can think of.





If we hadn't had to play every quest in the game dozens or hundreds of times over the course of TRs, it would likely be more fresh now.

I don't have a good solution for this issue (more content, duh! more randomization, duh! and so on), but it certainly is a big problem.

The solution is as simple as providing competing alternatives. You should want to TR sometimes, and also sit at cap sometimes. You should want to run the max xp/min chains sometimes, and you should also be motivated to run the quests with less XP rewards.

DDO tends to over-incentivise one thing as they don't understand the idea and implementation of competing alternatives very well.

For raids, it's as simple as making the rewards big enough that enough players are willing to do a little planning to run them.

Remember when it was the 3 day timer that kept players from raids? That got removed, and raids quickly dried up. Next up is the flagging barrier. All it does is allow those that know what they are doing to grab everything in a few days (instead of a few weeks), and leave a vast wasteland for everyone else.

Limitations to when you could raid is what actually pooled players together. More of the same (easier access) will not provide a pool of players, as content will just be exhausted that much faster.

You guys have the result of easier access right in front of you, and you are completely blind to it.



Now as for flagging, I'd like for it to persist through TRs with a sigil. I hardly see a downside to it and it is not like lore matters the 99th time.

How is anyone not flagged going to flag when you remove all the players that know how to flag? This is worse than just removing all flagging, as you provide an even smaller pool of potential players.

[Carpone]

Completing flagging quests at level is back in style thanks to reaper XP.

[Shavron]

What's with the insults hurled towards the OP?
I thought that this forum was populated by mature audience not blizzard fantards.

And yes flagging for some raids can be a pain.

[Hobgoblin]

mature fantards.



...... point in case?

[nokowi]

What's with the insults hurled towards the OP?


I think you are confused between an disagreement in opinion and a personal insult.

I saw the OP pretend to be attacked for being European, but they were literally the only one that said this.

I saw multiple iterations of "I hear your complaint" or "I feel your pain", including from me. Lack of raiding is a real issue.

The disagreement is on cause and effect, for which the OP has not made a very good link with their recommendations about flagging.

The best argument articulated so far is that devs should put time and effort into a change that many here believe won't harm anything (I disagree based on what timer bypasses did to the life of raids) but without any real suggestion that it will help enough to create a pool of players for raiding.

Why this would be a better suggestion than changing rewards to get people to raid again has not yet been expressed.

If reaper is about having the opportunity to group with challenge, raids would be a great place to pool players, as raids tend to have more cooperative or multi-objective design.

[nokowi]

And yes flagging for some raids can be a pain.

Talking about a specific raid would probably have a better chance of change than trying to argue all flagging should be removed.

[TDarkchylde]

I'm all for simplifying flagging for some of the harder stuff. Abbot, in particular, should be changed either to just run the flagging quests (just 86 the sigil entirely), or make the sigil permanent like the Sigil of Dal Quor needed to get into Titan. But as for removing flagging by doing quests, no. Just run the quests, you need the XP anyway. (I do wish Creeping Death were less of a timesink, but I don't flag for Legendary Shroud unless I'm doing an Epic or Iconic life for a change of pace, and even then, I run it on Heroic.)

I'm also for retaining completions. Most times now, I only get to run one of each raid per life because I'm going through Heroic lives so fast. When lives took a few months to do for most players, it made more sense to reset completion counts. It no longer does. It might also help get serial TRers into more, different raids while leveling, knowing they're working towards that 20th list even if they're in a fresh life by the time they're off timer.

[tralfaz81]

I saw the OP pretend to be attacked for being European, but they were literally the only one that said this.



I'm glad you saw that because I sure as hell don't remember anything even resembling that.

[Niminae]

Flagging is still a thing because technically it is a story line.

This is not the case. Flagging is still a thing because to make it no longer a thing would take dev man-hours to accomplish. In recent livestreams (recent being in the Wed 8/30 and Fri 9/1 livestreams if memory serves me) Cordovan stated that it is not at all likely that the Ascension Chamber flagging will ever be modified. Not only not eliminated, simply not changed in any way at all, ever. Because they are more than happy to allow old content remain irrelevant while they work on new content. That is not a direct quote obviously, it is just my impression of the reason he gave for that decision.

Which is kind of odd, given that in Update 36 they did update the loot in two very old quest chains. But that might have had a lot to do with the presence of an intern who is no longer on the job. Or maybe changing old loot isn't the same thing or as difficult as changing old content.


I think keeping raid completions though TR would do more to encourage raiding than reducing flagging. Running a raid a few times a life for that .5% chance of the item you want dropping in your name feels pretty hopeless. If you could move towards a 20th list through TR I'd feel a lot more incentive to tack on completions

And they have made that change with recent raids, where you collect runes that persist across a TR instead of plinking away at a 20th list so you don't lose your progress. But again: They have zero interest in making this change to any old content.

[Niminae]

Listen to what the people in this thread say. "I rarely ever bother to flag" and then "I can't run the raid when it pops up".
I must have missed the posts where the same person say both of those things. Mind linking them for me?



Next up will be (1) not having to run from house to house, (2) not having to travel through wilderness areas to get to a quest, (3) not having to go to a mailbox, (4) not having to wait to rest, (5) not having to find collectibles
Nice list. I itemized it for convenience. Here's my list:
1) Teleport system, teleport mass teleport spells/scrolls, Word of Recall, Store sales of Bracelet of Friendship, Store sales of Airship Beacon;
2) 3BC ports to the quests, Orchard ports to the quests, Ruins of Gianthold ports to the Eye camps, Stormhorns waypoint ports, Mass Teleport to Titan;
3) Maibox on the airship, store sales of remote Cannith Crafting stations, buyback mechanic;
4) Store sales of rest shrines;
5) Store sales of collectables;


DDO does not have the amount of content to remove all these things, nor will it benefit from catering to this level of entitlement.
That's odd. I'd never have characterized a bunch of things that they have already done as being things they can't benefit from doing, but maybe that's just me.

[Kaisheng21]

More people playing, game is more fun, more VIPs, more likelihood to buy new packs (because you are playing), and all the cash grabs from the store.

You've missed my point. It's not that they wouldn't get all this stuff from rewriting old packs, it's that they could probably do it easier, better and more profitable just by making new ones.

[nokowi]

I must have missed the posts where the same person say both of those things. Mind linking them for me?

The context of my replies was that nobody was attacking the OP. The only "attack" was one that was implied by someone from Europe. It was not the OP.

Someone will need to link all the attacks against the OP that are not simply disagreements. That would be a response related to the point I made.




Nice list. I itemized it for convenience. Here's my list:
1) Teleport system, teleport mass teleport spells/scrolls, Word of Recall, Store sales of Bracelet of Friendship, Store sales of Airship Beacon;
2) 3BC ports to the quests, Orchard ports to the quests, Ruins of Gianthold ports to the Eye camps, Stormhorns waypoint ports, Mass Teleport to Titan;
3) Maibox on the airship, store sales of remote Cannith Crafting stations, buyback mechanic;
4) Store sales of rest shrines;
5) Store sales of collectables;

Once again, you missed the entire context of my response so I will try to repeat myself once again.

1) The fact that players have ways to teleport does not change the fact they still have to walk from place to place. The arguments used in this thread (when applied to movement) would indicate that players have already walked from A to B, so there is no reason to make them do it again. Such a suggestion would allow players to repeat content even faster, making playing the same quests more often even more repetitive.

2) See number one. The existence of ways to move quickly do not eliminate the things I talked about, such as running through a wilderness.

3) You missed the recent threads about having to run to a mailbox, and how this was ridiculous in a low tech fantasy setting. Since players have already done this before, the same logic (when applied to mail boxes) says that this wait it stupid and should be removed.

4) Players still wait for recuperation of stuff when using a shrine. The time to activate the bought rest shrine is similar to the time for using it. Since players have already done this before, the same logic (when applied to rest shrines) says that this wait it stupid and should be removed. Now players have more time to rerun the same content more times and complain about the repetitiveness of content.

5) Not all collectibles are sold in stores, nor do all players choose to do this. "It is in the store" is not an appreciated answer for someone complaining about cannith crafting. You missed the fact that people still spend time to go acquire collectibles, despite the presence of some of them in the store. Since players have already done this before, the same logic (when applied to collectibles) says that this wait it stupid and should be removed.



That's odd. I'd never have characterized a bunch of things that they have already done as being things they can't benefit from doing, but maybe that's just me.

What is odd is that you missed every one of my points. Hopefully I have made them clearer. When your responses are related to my points, it is much easier for us to have a discussion.

The logic of "Because I have flagged before" --> "I shouldn't have to do it again" applies to all 5 of the above, and many many more things. Keep applying this logic and you end up with an empty shell of a game. It's the things that people do between quests that give a cohesiveness to the believability of a fantasy setting. Trying to remove them all is detrimental to the game.

The logical extension of "I shouldn't have to flag because I have flagged before" is "I shouldn't have to raid because I have raided before". Next up is demands for raid items to drop every run because "it's stupid to have to do the same thing over and over" and because people are going to TR anyway.

It's a never ending slippery slope of entitlement that tries to remove any reason to play DDO more than one time through, as repeating things is stupid. DDO simply doesn't have the amount of content to appeal to this level of preference for not repeating things.

When players realize they have repeated content so frequently that it becomes boring, they should actually be asking for more things to do, not less.

[Gremmlynn]

Yea that's why I said in my first post that permanent flagging over TR lives is much better.

For most raids I flag as I level up including for VoN, shroud, legendary shroud, ToD(occasionally when I need yugo pots),Reavers Fate, Defiler and ADQ(sometimes if I feel like dealing with chains of flame). If I'm going to epic cap I also flag for Citw, the fall of truth, and occasionally MoD.
For the most part I flag for all these raids, because all those pre quests give good/great xp at the level they are. As for the epic ones, I run those for sure for the saga's.

Now it comes down to why run the raids? My crafted gear is better then most of the old raid gear with a few exceptions and stuff I can't craft. Some raids are so outdated they don't even have working gear anymore with the current system(ToD rings dont work with handwraps anymore). I will admit I don't know the Titan raid as I was never able to find a group/time to learn it. Reavers fate id run maybe 1 in every 10 lives just for the small chance of madstone boots that life. VoN Id run if there was a group up for it. but id mostly save it for epic for xp. The rest come down to if I'm doing anything/bored enough to run them and there is an lfm up for them.It's the final point that I see as a reason to drop flagging for (most) older raids. The only real reason to run them (other than maybe favor) is as something different to do. The loots not really relevant and even if it were, if it's not end game BiS loot it generally will be out leveled before one gets it anyway, or save more time over even multiple TRs than it takes to get (GS being the only exception here really).

The way I see it, removing flagging from those raids would at least give them a chance to be run.

[nokowi]

It's the final point that I see as a reason to drop flagging for (most) older raids. The only real reason to run them (other than maybe favor) is as something different to do.

Flagging for old raids is also something different to do, in contrast to max XP/min quests.



The loots not really relevant and even if it were, if it's not end game BiS loot it generally will be out leveled before one gets it anyway, or save more time over even multiple TRs than it takes to get (GS being the only exception here really).

The way I see it, removing flagging from those raids would at least give them a chance to be run.

The way I see it, devs can simply provide better raid RXP rewards to give them a much much much much better chance to be run --> if this is the desire of devs.

[Gremmlynn]

This is not the case. Flagging is still a thing because to make it no longer a thing would take dev man-hours to accomplish. In recent livestreams (recent being in the Wed 8/30 and Fri 9/1 livestreams if memory serves me) Cordovan stated that it is not at all likely that the Ascension Chamber flagging will ever be modified. Not only not eliminated, simply not changed in any way at all, ever. Because they are more than happy to allow old content remain irrelevant while they work on new content. That is not a direct quote obviously, it is just my impression of the reason he gave for that decision.That's a good point. Though it could very well be a lot easier to drop a flagging mechanic than changing one. It might be, but it also might be a case of simply removing or turning off a "flagging necessary" flag in the "quest giver" code. It could be as easy as changing an =Y to an =N, for instance.


Which is kind of odd, given that in Update 36 they did update the loot in two very old quest chains. But that might have had a lot to do with the presence of an intern who is no longer on the job. Or maybe changing old loot isn't the same thing or as difficult as changing old content.That's something I'm pretty sure of. Changing a few values almost has to be less difficult than writing new flagging mechanics code.

[Gremmlynn]

Flagging for old raids is also something different to do, in contrast to max XP/min quests.And still would be and in many cases would be something they plan to run anyway. The thing is, unless one happened to see that LFM (which would be less likely to be posted anyway) sometime between flagging and out leveling that LFM, it really wouldn't matter that it was flagging content.

By removing the flagging, seeing that LFM could cause players to take a break from their quest schedule to run it as long as they are in the LFM range. So if a Reaver's Fate gets posted for levels 11-14, for instance, Players at levels 11, 12 and 13, who haven't gotten to GH flaggers yet (since they are saving those for 14) very well might join as it's not something they generally would expect to run, so not killing the xp for later. With flagging, they are unlikely to join unless they happen to both be done with the flagging and not over the level.

Also, that there is a pool of people who might join gives an incentive to post that LFM.

I will say that I'm working under the premise that very few would be planning on running heroic raids at all, at least at level as part of their leveling plan.


The way I see it, devs can simply provide better raid RXP rewards to give them a much much much much better chance to be run --> if this is the desire of devs.Doubtful in my view, outside of guild/channel groups. It simply isn't likely enough to for a raid to be there at the right time to be worthwhile. The way the game is played these days, quests are generally run at quest level for reaper or at quest level +2 for those not playing Reaper. Which pretty much means next to nobody is going to be flagged below those levels. That cuts a lot of potential players off from being able to fill any (at level) raid LFMs, which cuts into the incentive to post those LFMs in the first place.

The game's xp mechanics work to undercut the likelihood of mid-level raids from being run due to flagging by limiting the potential joiners to those who have completed the flagging quests, but haven't gained a level that cuts into the RXP/BB of the raid yet. Because without full RXP or BB, whichever floats a particular players boat, the motivation to run the raid at all is quite a bit less in general, as I see the game as being played.

[Edwardt]

The Raider's trunk is back and better than ever!
Filled with terrific items to help you get the most out of raiding without flagging! Includes:

· 10 Shiny Flagging Bypass Jewels
· 10 Bigby's Advising Hands 'this is my save spot'
· 5 Sovereign I XP Boost Potions
· 5 Huge Jewel of Fortune
· 5 Greater Treasure Hunter's Elixirs
· Rare bound cosmetic outfit "Shroud of the Lazy"
· 5 Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass
· 5 legendary Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass

I bet it would sell :D

[Tyrande]

The Raider's trunk is back and better than ever!
Filled with terrific items to help you get the most out of raiding without flagging! Includes:

· 10 Shiny Flagging Bypass Jewels
· 10 Bigby's Advising Hands 'this is my save spot'
· 5 Sovereign I XP Boost Potions
· 5 Huge Jewel of Fortune
· 5 Greater Treasure Hunter's Elixirs
· Rare bound cosmetic outfit "Shroud of the Lazy"
· 5 Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass
· 5 legendary Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass

I bet it would sell :D

You forgot:


42 Supreme Leader kill 'monster' buttons. Upon a press of a button, the mob dies. :)
777 Win buttons. Easy Peasy, "I win" buttons. Upon pressing the button, the flagging quest is auto-completed.

[Renvar]

Flagging is a "thing" because it is a part of the storytelling aspect of the game. One of the vestiges of this being a D&D RPG and not just an MMO.

MMO's are all about getting people to play a game together. D&D is about storytelling, role-playing, immersion. These two things are at odds. In a fully immersive world, an elven or human quest giver in FR would not give a quest to a drow character unless they had a reputation (earned X favor from a certain patron group). However, such role playing/immersion tactics work great in "campaign" games like Skyrim, or Dragon Age, or Baldur's Gate, but in an MMO, the idea of developing content and then having some portion of the player base be unable to play it on demand is a negative. For the developer and the players.

I'd say the game could use an "RPG" or "Campaign" setting in the UI Options for players who prefer that kind of immersion and playstyle, but could be turned off for players who are more MMO oriented and just want to run content, get XP and loot and do builds and character progression. Flagging is one of the things that could be toggled with this setting. As well as any other "chain" progressions.

There are a lot of things they could do with a more "RPG"/immersive setting. Including having it be a multi-level setting that gets more and more immersive. Again, all at each player's voluntary level. Players could temporarily change it, as well, when they wanted to group with others, as needed, and then turn it back to return to their preferred setting later.

[nokowi]

And still would be and in many cases would be something they plan to run anyway. The thing is, unless one happened to see that LFM (which would be less likely to be posted anyway) sometime between flagging and out leveling that LFM, it really wouldn't matter that it was flagging content.

What we know for sure is that some people that currently flag for raids will not need to run those quests.

Thinking everyone that flags will still flag would be ridiculous.

So players find it easier to raid, but more difficult to run the flagging quests.

Those of you not wanting to group in flagging quests think this is great. Those that enjoy grouping for pre-raid quest will not when there are less people available for those quests.

Saying it doesn't harm anything is not true. Negative for some, positive for others.

Positive for all would be to have better reasons to run raids - more people flagging and more people in the raids.

The solution is so obvious and yet people keep trying to address the symptom over the cause.

[Chai]

The Raider's trunk is back and better than ever!
Filled with terrific items to help you get the most out of raiding without flagging! Includes:

· 10 Shiny Flagging Bypass Jewels
· 10 Bigby's Advising Hands 'this is my save spot'
· 5 Sovereign I XP Boost Potions
· 5 Huge Jewel of Fortune
· 5 Greater Treasure Hunter's Elixirs
· Rare bound cosmetic outfit "Shroud of the Lazy"
· 5 Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass
· 5 legendary Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass

I bet it would sell :D

But I still have to actually P-L-A-Y the raid?

If you're going to sell me the ability to bypass everything else, just sell me the ability to bypass playing the raid but still get the end reward. Call it something like "Raid Angst Bypass." Include some random screenshots of raid completions on top of the deal.

[arkonas]

the only one i think should be like titan is abbot. I think raid completions should persist through trs. You want to know i have been saying for a while now we need reasons to run raids right? how many times is this something that needs to be said. How many dead raids do we have? look at other games with dead raids as well. Why? some of the best raids in any game were made at different points. Yet once you passed it or get what you want. What is the point of running them right? we have systems in place like valor and whatever legendary tokens will be. I just would love to see a raiding one.

we don't need more power from whatever it is but just having something to chase would be a reason to run a raid whatever it maybe. tomes or potions of deathward etc. cosmetics.

[nokowi]

I think raid completions should persist through trs.

Yes.

[JOTMON]

the only one i think should be like titan is abbot. I think raid completions should persist through trs. You want to know i have been saying for a while now we need reasons to run raids right? how many times is this something that needs to be said. How many dead raids do we have? look at other games with dead raids as well. Why? some of the best raids in any game were made at different points. Yet once you passed it or get what you want. What is the point of running them right? we have systems in place like valor and whatever legendary tokens will be. I just would love to see a raiding one.

we don't need more power from whatever it is but just having something to chase would be a reason to run a raid whatever it maybe. tomes or potions of deathward etc. cosmetics.

To be fair Titan has its own issues for why no one plays it anymore... and it is one where the sigil can be reused to not have to reflag every life.

Abbot is a long flag due to redoing litany 4x for each side. over and above flagging the 4 quests for Litany..

I am all for the flag once and have a permanent sigil.. would be great for me..
would be even better if Raid completion counters persisted through TR lives too.. I would Run a lot more raids while TR'ing if they did.
in many cases there's no point to flagging if you don't plan to run the raid in that life and it isn't Von (which has great XP and is run each life because of the great XP)..

Also, many of the raids just are not worth running anymore since their named loots don't hold up to the OP power blow out with new randomgens and Cannith crafting.
Without interesting loot or decent XP.. why run flag/raid content that doesn't hold up.
a named loot pass is long past due... an XP revamp would be of benefit as well..

One of the issues I see with not reflagging through TR lives is the impact on new players and players that haven't flagged initially..
Its going to be a lot tougher for those players to get flagged when all the veterans don't need to flag and go straight to raiding.

[Algreg]

Flagging is a "thing" because it is a part of the storytelling aspect of the game. One of the vestiges of this being a D&D RPG and not just an MMO.

Not sure if this already came up in this thread, but to stick with the storytelling aspect, raids could require only one person having done the flagging and "unlocking" the raid for the rest. I think some of the raid NPCs even say something along the lines of "bring friends".

[Cantor]

Not sure if this already came up in this thread, but to stick with the storytelling aspect, raids could require only one person having done the flagging and "unlocking" the raid for the rest. I think some of the raid NPCs even say something along the lines of "bring friends".

I think this is more about not bypassing raid mechanics, like 3 day wait and 20th lists.

[Cantor]

The Raider's trunk is back and better than ever!
Filled with terrific items to help you get the most out of raiding without flagging! Includes:

· 10 Shiny Flagging Bypass Jewels
· 10 Bigby's Advising Hands 'this is my save spot'
· 5 Sovereign I XP Boost Potions
· 5 Huge Jewel of Fortune
· 5 Greater Treasure Hunter's Elixirs
· Rare bound cosmetic outfit "Shroud of the Lazy"
· 5 Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass
· 5 legendary Raid Timer Bypass Hourglass

I bet it would sell :D

But why, I'm gonna do all my raiding at cap... how about a potion of double 20th completion advancement.

[Annex]

I am not very knowledgeable of such things but offer a few small ideas to add to the discussion:

1) Any "Sigil" requires precious storage space in Bound character storage. Perhaps converting all "Sigil" type items into permanent Character Feats would offer more utility?

2) Increasing experience and updating treasure from a Raid certainly increases the allure of the Raid, but only for those already predisposed to Raid. Perhaps consider increasing experience and updating treasure from the Flagging quests as well?

* Everyone gains a benefit including those not predisposed to Raid.
* Those not predisposed to Raid naturally flag more often, perhaps enticing them to try a Raid.
* Those predisposed to Raid naturally flag more often, putting them in position to join more Raids.
* Those predisposed to lead Raids ("Team Captains") naturally flag more often, putting them in position to start Raids.
* With more people naturally flagged "Team Captains" have a better chance of filling a Raid.

3) Perhaps offering some heavy incentive to running a Raid on Normal difficulty would cast a very wide net, drawing in many players otherwise disinclined to Raid?

[Captain_Wizbang]

. I'm tired of.

I'm tired of people that come here on the forums and cry about running here and there, and flagging, and coyle, the list goes on.

https://i.imgur.com/fmawmjV.gif

[zehnvhex]

So far the most compelling reason to not allow red boxing is...they don't wanna.

From a story perspective how many of the zones you can't red box have a reason you can't bring some friends? It's been awhile since I cared enough to remember the specifics but I'm fairly certain only one person would need to break all 4 control crystals to be able to enter the ascension chamber. Fairly certain nothing specially happens in VoN 1-4 that would prevent you from bringing a cousin along into V5.

I mean at least going through V5 to get to V6 makes some sense since the zone entrance to 6 is in 5. Having to pass the acrhon trials makes sense.

But why again can't you zone into the Tor until you've done the quests?

"Hey, the Stormreaver is about to blow up all of Eberron, come help!"
"Sorry mate, I need to go kill the Madstone lich guy first so I can eventually find out that I need to go to Tor!"
"But I already did that and I'm telling you we need to go in!"
"But I didn't do it yet so I can't know even through word of mouth!"
"But...."
"Timelines bruh!"

[Captain_Wizbang]

I went back and read some of this thread. Same substance as the other 200 threads on this.

Why don't we just make every quest/raid all stand-alone quests, with a solo setting to boot. :rolleyes:


This isn't any other MMO that has that watered down atmosphere.

YES you have to run to Yarkuch 6 times. The Friar, Bruku & Hragg, Same as Threnal, Delara's.............

That is how this game is designed, you complete missions to advance story arcs sometimes. Others, like necro, all let you run the pre-quals as long as you acquire the quest. Vale of Twilight took that to the next level with walk-up quest bestow.

No matter,......... deal with it, that's the design of a GREAT 11 year old game. :p

:cool: