Raid Loot / Raid Flagging

[Sojourner]

With the new raid loot system going in -- with every multiple of 20 you run the raid, you get some of the raid loot to show up on your end-reward list.


I was getting flagged for the DQ raid tonight, and realized that for the 20th raid reward, what I would really like is to not have to go through all this again and again... I'd give up the first raid-loot select if I didn't have to run the desert 3 every time.

[smodge13]

agree, they need to change velah/dq so that it has an easier flagging system

[narizue]

Absolutely agree. I am sick to death of Vons 1-4, and Offering/Chains/Wizking are heading that way quick for me. By comparison I still love HIPS, Ghola, Shrieking, as well as Madstone, Crucible and POP.

[Soul-Shaker]

I wouldnt give up my first 20 reward because I'm believing it will be all the junk . But I totally Agree with the flagging. The new loot system is bad enough and I feel sorry enough for the casual gamers that will probably take 3/4 months to do it 20 times. 20 times is a bit much if there target is casual gamers thats for sure.

[grimblackblade]

The new loot system is bad enough and I feel sorry enough for the casual gamers that will probably take 3/4 months to do it 20 times. 20 times is a bit much if there target is casual gamers thats for sure.

Not sure how many casual players you play with, but you need to switch months to years

[Sojourner]

Odds are, if you are casual enough that you are only running the DQ raid once a every other month or less, then running the pre-reqs isn't a huge inconvenience to you - or, at least you haven't run them so often you could do it in your sleep.

What bothers me is wanting to run it maybe once a week, or every other, but the thought of having to rerun those desert pre-reqs for the 47th time just makes it painful.

[PaintHorseCowboy]

Just some discussion/comparison of the difference in time schedule between the power-gamer and the casual-gamer.

Let's for the sake of arguement say you can repeat a raid every 3 days.

Yes, I know it's actually 2 days, 18 hours. Which actually, barring any outside, real-life interruptions, leaves you 6 hours to flag after the timer expires.

So like I said, for sake of argument, let's say every 3 days to make the math easier for those that detest this subject.

3 days x 20 raids = 60 days total time to run 20 raids and access your uber-end reward.

This is provided you are consistantly reflagged, don't have real life interruptions, and have a group ready to go, for those that require group efforts.

That's two months for the bleary-eyed, basement-living, power gamer.

If you play once a week, flag and run, for example the Demon Queen series, that's 20 weeks or approximately 5 months, and the probability that you will exclusively do the DQ during your once-per-week playtime is minimal. Very likely, you will expand this figure by at least 2-3 months, if not longer for the casual gamer.

With that being said, I like the idea of the change to the DQ raid, the loot acquired by those tokens is marginally useful by the time you collect enough to trade in. I could see them changing it so that you have to turn in so many tokens, and perhaps fight your way through the desert to a contact near the quest entrance/exit to acquire the item from someone who has already "stolen" it for you. Thereby allowing you to skip the quest part, providing a use for the tokens, but not literally handing you the raid every 3 days. Going to have to put forth at least a minimal effort since you can probably solo your way to these contacts. This idea is plausable since in this series, you are simply acquiring an item. Nothing says someone else cannot acquire the item for you and you trade for it. However, the VON series is another matter.

Unfortunately, with the story line of the VON series, I don't see how this change is going to be workable. The Laughing Knives broke up. They're scattered across the continent. You have to reunite them for them to help you access the Vault of Night. That in and of itself is very close to an entire module for a PnP game, the culmination of which is a fight against a formidible dragon. You want my help, you'd better help me with something. And no, don't send your lackey to beg me for my help. You want my help, you talk to me face-to-face and prove that you're worthy of it. It's a classic example of PnP type play, complete with quid pro quo.

Yes, having to repeat it "ad nauseum" is somewhat annoying but as we've repeatedly told other players, you can't expect them to hand you everything and say. "Here you go. The line for your free, quest-free, xp-debt free, effort-free, loot forms here."

[Sojourner]

You know, reflagging for the dragon doesn't bother me nearly as much as it does for the DQ. Probably because after you've ran it a dozen times, and have reached level 14 (doesn't it start as a level 7-10 mission or something?) you can run all 4 pre-req missions in about an hour.

DQ is just painful. Maybe its just me. But it seems to take all frigging night to get a party through all 4 pre-req missions. No matter what their level or experience is. With a guild group, dedicated to finishing them off, I think it took us about 3 hours last night to do all 4. And that was doing blitz runs -- screw killing the mobs, we'll just outrun them.

Honestly, I don't really have a problem with the concept of raids taking several hours and lots of people to complete. They are supposed to be difficult, end-game elite content. But, VoN and DQ are so different from the other raids in terms of their requirements that it would be nice to have a way to make them all similar.

Instead of going "I'd like to run the DQ, but no one is flagged, so lets do the reaver or titan again" - it would be nice to say "which one do we feel like running tonight".

What I would prefer is for the raids themselves to be long, elite, tough-ass missions that take some time and effort to complete. Not for the pre-req flagging missions to be time-sinks requiring you to waste a couple hours in order to get into a raid that lasts 5 minutes.



What about this as an option -- When you hit your 20th repetition, you get the option. One of your end-rewards is not an item, just a flag you can take instead of an end-reward item.

If you already have all the raid loot you want, you take the flag, just so you don't have to re-run everything over and over again just to be available to help your buddies out.

If there is something on the list you want, you have to decide between taking it now, or skipping re-flagging and hoping it drops again some other time.



.

[Hendrik]

You know, I'm on the fence about all this. On one hand, it's a good idea as it stands. On the other, kind of defeats the purpose of the chain of Quests to reach the Raid.

Maybe some middle ground is needed? Maybe the solution, one of many posted, would be that we are required to run the pre-req's X amount of times and complete the Raid. Once that task is accomplished, you can be perm keyed up for the raid, only having to wait the appropriate amount of time between them.

For example, Valeh. Under my idea, you have to run VoN1~5 and the raid, successfully, say 5 times. After the 5th time, you are perm keyed up to just enter VoN5. Same would apply for all previous Raids to the Reaver.

Thought? Additions? Improvements?

EDIT

Reading above post, I really like the idea after 20 completes, perm flag.