Shroud Etiquette and why we as a server should stop screwing over newer players

[NaturalHazard]

Better yet everyone roll on that shard of power for 5 mins while I am in pt 2 without a healer. Fun times.

good you can go clear trash so when everyone zones in its just the bosses to deal with.

[muffinlad]

I believe most of the ppl complaining about not looting on a "SpeedRun" are missing the whole point of raid participation. If you take the time to loot the chests while everyone else is in the next part of the raid you are not participating with the group (Piker). While you are getting your loot the other 11 members are continueing the raid minus your presence. Also when people loot the chest in each part before moving on some players may DC and if you are looting the chests then they get screwed.

The idea behind the SpeedRun is not about the loot....its about the continous flow from 1-5 without stopping thus making for a ~20 minute completion time. After said completion...it is about the loot.....where else can you loot 12 chests in a row?

Well said. Some folks don't have time to bleed...we don't have time to loot. We gots things 'ta killz.

muffingov

[Riggs]

Nice OP

didnt read any of the pages of flaming that probably resulted.

Just one point a couple posts up - yeah it would take longer to loot at the end than click on chests on the way by and hit 'loot all'. Looking at the completion time is meaningless if all 12 people have to go back and re-run through all 5 parts to loot.

If someone stands around asking if someone wants their shard say, they will get the hint when everyone runs off and is already in the next part.

Learning to adapt to going faster would help more people improve - and improve pugs, than simply excluding large chunks of population.

[maddmatt70]

i'd like to add a factual comment: loot-at-end is slower than loot-on-the-go. as someone who's first priority is efficiency, i have tested this a few times and even if you never shrine and never stop, the time it takes to go through the portals and hit up every chest is not worth it. especially when you consider parts 2 and 3 where you might spawn really far from the chests. in my opinion a true speed-runner will always loot-on-the-go, unless you are going for a screenshot finish which unfortunately will probably be pointless since all these records were already shattered back during the no-CD period. as for no DD, i would offer an additional reason that the purpose of no DD is not just to finish faster, but it also works as a screen against newer players hitting your LFM. it filters out players with very few toons (and by proxy, very little experience) - which is an understandable objective of some party leaders. i'm not saying i do these thing myself (i've never put up a no-DD run in my entire ddo career), but i'm just trying to explain reasons and rationale behind why certain party leaders do certain things.

Haha. I take the first 12 people that apply to the quest unless they are a friend/guildy in which case I may take them before a non friend. I have ended up with 4 sorc/wiz in group before what have you. I do not screen for new or old or guild or class or whatever its the friggin' shroud a bunch of monkeys could complete it. I would have to say I have done both styles far more then you. I have done a 15 min shroud speed pick up group which if you add loot time of 2 min is 17 minutes. Have you ever done a loot along the way of 17 min or less? More to the point is what do you consistantly do timewise. I can guarantee that we do faster times with loot at the end man. Regardless its more fun that way - shroud after 2000 times gets old so lets have fun....

[Fetchi]

Haha. I take the first 12 people that apply to the quest unless they are a friend/guildy in which case I may take them before a non friend. I have ended up with 4 sorc/wiz in group before what have you. I do not screen for new or old or guild or class or whatever its the friggin' shroud a bunch of monkeys could complete it. I would have to say I have done both styles far more then you. I have done a 15 min shroud speed pick up group which if you add loot time of 2 min is 17 minutes. Have you ever done a loot along the way of 17 min or less? More to the point is what do you consistantly do timewise. I can guarantee that we do faster times with loot at the end man. Regardless its more fun that way - shroud after 2000 times gets old so lets have fun....

Just wanted to say thank you to you and your guild for many enjoyable runs with you. Speed shroud runs have been much more enjoyable and rewarding for me after about 1000 runs as well.

[Thrudh]

Better yet everyone roll on that shard of power for 5 mins while I am in pt 2 without a healer. Fun times.

Are you saying you need a healer in part 2 when clearing the trash?

[Thrudh]

shroud after 2000 times gets old so lets have fun....

Why do you still do Shroud? Don't you have all the items you need by now? Just curious.

[PopeJual]

Are you saying you need a healer in part 2 when clearing the trash?

When you're the only person in South Central and you're slowly taking out all of the trash that 6+ melee usually deal with then, yes, a healer can be handy.

Why do you still do Shroud? Don't you have all the items you need by now? Just curious.

Don't you occasionally make new characters too? Even if you're not a full blown alt-oholic, an occasional new character is a nice addition. I'd say that every character could benefit from at least one GS weapon and at least one GS item, so there's good reason for every player to run the Shroud.

[stainer]

Are you saying you need a healer in part 2 when clearing the trash?

Yes, I could use a healer when surrounded by several Orthons. Unless I am on my monk. The monk is money. Sorry I am not as uber as you.

[Desteria]

Why do you still do Shroud? Don't you have all the items you need by now? Just curious.

Havent epic items caused you to have to move a toen of shroud items to new slots, havent you tred your old THF in to a tWF and need a new set of 2-6 weapons...
isent there Always more weaposn you can use, there are soem great specific case shroud weapons that were low priority.
+ devil scales are a good trade currency.

All my chars were set more or less then epic items and TR came i had 40 scales banked now i need 20 more just for imedata plans not coutign thsoe trip pos blunts i would not mind making etc.

[Salkanor]

Yes I can't help but think that our guild is targeted as 'new player unfriendly' for this one particular raid that is run as a speed listed in this thread so I figured I'd actually post something since I'm rarely on the forums because of this kinda stuff.

I will agree to the fact that early on we all used to farm the shroud in phases to farm ingredients until we had enough to craft which at that point was pure testing and no one knew what 20 completions got you. I did many of these sacking runs up to part 4 with you Axer but the game has changed and so has the amount of knowledge that's available for this or any new quest/raid. There is no need to farm phases in the same fashion we did unless of course you only have 1 or 2 toons and I think it's entirely more rare to find any farming to phase 4 lfms than there used to be. There are so many resources for one to find a recipe or advice on crafting it's unnecessary to farm beyond what is needed unless you make a mistake.

We used to issue out all the necessary buffs and make assignments as we figured out more about the raid and ways to make it more efficient. As time passed and more people have their own resists or buffs the onus is to be more self sufficient. The very first time I had ever heard of zerging through with minimal buffs was by you Axer. I find it utterly ironic that you inadvertently started, in my mind, what turned out to be a trend that you're now posting about being a disservice to new players. I'm not saying that you started speed runs, I have no idea who did but for me I distinctly recall Ellistran saying something about Axer is doing shrouds fast by doing it this way. Then some where down the line people started to do shrouds for speed times and someone posted a record accomplishment which started a cross guild competition. I won't say it was only our guild but rather our group of friends across multiple guilds were able to come together to either tie or own various records at various mod releases which we are all very proud of. Why is that? Because as veteran players we often need certain challenges and in this case it caused us to understand the shroud and work as a team that was well prepared to fill roles and complete tasks with full commitment by all. Other people started posting interesting shroud runs like the one led by Aussie with all bards. Lfms are created with a purpose by the leader which in my opinion should be followed and respected.

I think for the most part people have summed up the points of why people form speed shrouds, why people join them and why people think the idea of speed is ill conceived. I'm going to make a few points that explains our guild perspective on speed shrouds starting with we've run the raid 1000s of times and we're only here for farming purposes; it holds very little enjoyment unless we do something to make it a bit more exciting so it has nothing to do with a power trip. Not only do we notice that things can generally slow down if people pressed the loot all button there will always be a number of people who want to roll for shards, forgot to empty their inventories or sometimes they dc so by reducing the number of times you loot to one instance it should be more apparent that someone isn't there so people can wait. By not looting it forces people to work as a team in a concerted effort to complete each phase quickly; everyone is accountable. By looting at the end it allows everyone the freedom to take their time to trade, adjust their inventory and craft without worrying about it impacting everyone else's time; I see this as a group consideration rather than an accommodation for each individual who joins a raid expecting their needs to be entirely met.

I will say this of Maddmatt70, he leads the majority of our raids quickly and efficiently as possible where sometimes in that role he is short on explanation but heavy in direction sometimes missing some friends in the current raid but with a promise of a spot for next time. Sometimes this doesn't work out or please everyone but hey, he's human and he's doing his best. In the shrouds he runs he not only has a clear lfm description he always has a vocal disclaimer before we begin which ends with 'if you're not cool with that, feel free to drop we'll grab someone else, no big deal'. It boils down to choice and the personal freedom one can have to enjoy the game how they like. Sure we'll say something if you start looting after we've told you no less than 2 times not to do so, it's a basic indication that your desires are greater than the group's but it's extremely unlikely we'll black list you. If a pug sees the lfm and chooses to join and asks why we do it as such we never hesitate to give them a few reasons why and for the most part they enjoy the experience. I find the very idea that newer players feel entitled to demand to have their needs met over vets just as arrogant as vets expecting new players to know everything. I do think that for something like the shroud where many of the vets who were around to have figured it out should be allowed to run it as they please and that newer players could actually try to form a raid and explore it for themselves like we did when we knew nothing. To me speed shrouds are like small historical stamps on how groups did record setting shroud runs and how in achieving them it's left a legacy of how to do one particular raid fast. Having shrouds run in this fashion should force any new player to really think about how to do this raid and what he/she could do to contribute to make it completed faster as a team effort. Until you're ready for that challenge join any other shroud lfm to learn, no hard feelings but don't hold it against us if we want to get it done fast so we can try to complete some other raids before the evening is over.

Well said! P rick.

[Thrudh]

Havent epic items caused you to have to move a toen of shroud items to new slots, havent you tred your old THF in to a tWF and need a new set of 2-6 weapons...
isent there Always more weaposn you can use, there are soem great specific case shroud weapons that were low priority.
+ devil scales are a good trade currency.

All my chars were set more or less then epic items and TR came i had 40 scales banked now i need 20 more just for imedata plans not coutign thsoe trip pos blunts i would not mind making etc.

All good points... but 2000 shrouds... wow... I have 7 capped characters, each with multiple GS items... I've run shroud about 500 times, I'd guess... and I'm pretty close to done... I already have like 30-40 GS items... I can't imagine what I'd need to craft if I could make another 100 GS items.

Guess my main point is not that doing the Shroud 2000 times is too many times, but if running Shroud is BORING, then I wonder why 2000 isn't enough.

[Disavowed]

All good points... but 2000 shrouds... wow... I have 7 capped characters, each with multiple GS items... I've run shroud about 500 times, I'd guess... and I'm pretty close to done... I already have like 30-40 GS items... I can't imagine what I'd need to craft if I could make another 100 GS items.

Guess my main point is not that doing the Shroud 2000 times is too many times, but if running Shroud is BORING, then I wonder why 2000 isn't enough.

Usaully I agree with you but not in this case. Most of us had around 1000 runs before the level cap got opened to 20. Then when it opened to 20 we were allowed more toons. I myself have 17 toons with a minimum of 4 gs items on each. Some of those toons aren't capped yet and still need gs items. Others are tr d and need diff items. And on top of that shroud at level is good xp which is how I run it on my lower level toons. So for those of us like you who have been around for a while we are getting to or at 2000 runs.

Away from what you posted and on the topic of speed runs.

I used to like the semi speed runs and that's how I ran them. My LFMs would say loot on the way but no wasting time and we'd be done in 30 min. give or take which was fine. Now when I run these exact same LFM Shroud runs rarely are they done in under 50 minutes. Again these are my LFMs and I'm giving the same directions when we walk in and start the quest. Why so much longer now? Because people like the OP disregard what I say and do what they want instead. people still stay behind and craft, go AFK for whatever, ask for unneeded buffs. Hero and TS are not needed in part one people. You hit the portals on a 2 no matter what, and you shouldn't be beating on the blurred mobs anyway, you should be pounding the portals. The caster will take care of the mobs and if the portals get blurred the clerics will gtr dispell them. Instead we take 2x as long on part 1 because everyone wantsto do their own thing kill mobs instead of protals, pike, etc. Never have I seen so many portal keepers spawn as of late.

So now I prefer to the typical zerg thru as fast as possible and get your loot at the end. Even after looting we're done in 30 minutes give or take. This is far better than 50 minutes. Now if we could go back to the way it was then I'd prefer to loot as we go, but nowadays that seems to be impossible even with firm directions given in advance. The true speed runs don't seem to have this problem as often unless you run into someone like the OP who still disregards instructions even after being told a second time since he "didn't know" prior yet he continues to do so even after being told.

I have several friends that are new to the game and have less than 20 runs in there. After each of them has gotten into their 1st speed run recntly (and it wasn't ran by me), and each of them loved it and boasted about how fun it was. So this blows the OP's thoery out of the water. Teach them how to do it right but teach them how to do it time efficient & they will enjoy it more. And if time efficient was STILL looting on the way that's how I'd teach it but it no longer is.

[BlackSteel]

The bus.

There is a bus that leaves 50-75 times a day that makes several stops along the way; it arrives in 25-40 minutes at its destination.

Four to ten times a day there is a bus that takes the direct route, making no stops and arriving in 15-21 minutes at its destination.

Both busses clearly advertise their intent on their respective winows. When you get on the direct route bus, the driver tells you that there are no stops, and if you need to exit this bus before it begins so that you can take the next slow bus (which leaves within five minutes), no problem at all. If you ask the driver and the other 10 passengers on the direct route bus to make stops for you constantly during the drive, you will be denied future access to the fast bus.

Fortunately in the name of freedom of choice there are two types of busses, get on the one that's right for you and no one will have a problem.

this

people have the option on what they want to run.

frankly its none of the OP's business to dictate how others like to run their shrouds.

personally I like it when I get a chance to join the real speed runs at night. doing a 20ish minute run is alot better than the semispeed runs during the day that still last 30-40 minutes.

as to looting at end or on the way, doesnt really matter to me. I do think that looting on the way can be fast if people just hit loot all and go. But thats almost never the case, once you start looting people begin to take forever and the group gets seperated.

[Thrudh]

Usaully I agree with you but not in this case. Most of us had around 1000 runs before the level cap got opened to 20. Then when it opened to 20 we were allowed more toons. I myself have 17 toons with a minimum of 4 gs items on each. Some of those toons aren't capped yet and still need gs items. Others are tr d and need diff items. And on top of that shroud at level is good xp which is how I run it on my lower level toons. So for those of us like you who have been around for a while we are getting to or at 2000 runs.

I hear ya... 17 characters though?? wow... I have 7, and pretty much ignore 2 of them since TR came out. How in the world do you play 17? I had the itch to start a new character recently, and realized TRing one of my old characters (already with GS gear), made a lot more sense...

[Disavowed]

I hear ya... 17 characters though?? wow... I have 7, and pretty much ignore 2 of them since TR came out. How in the world do you play 17? I had the itch to start a new character recently, and realized TRing one of my old characters (already with GS gear), made a lot more sense...

1 of them is a mule but I actually play the rest. # of them are Tr'd of which 1 is capped and the other 2 on the way. I try to have a few toons at low levels to run w/ buddies who are bringing up new toons. pretty much if they roll 1 I roll one too so we can run together. Next thing you know you have 17 toons. I think from here on out though I'll just do as you and TR.

[stainer]

1 of them is a mule but I actually play the rest. # of them are Tr'd of which 1 is capped and the other 2 on the way. I try to have a few toons at low levels to run w/ buddies who are bringing up new toons. pretty much if they roll 1 I roll one too so we can run together. Next thing you know you have 17 toons. I think from here on out though I'll just do as you and TR.

When we run together is it the mule you are on? It seems to change names a lot.

[Disavowed]

When we run together is it the mule you are on? It seems to change names a lot.

For you my usuall comment. Go **** yourself buddy .

[stainer]

For you my usuall comment. Go **** yourself buddy .

I knew that was coming big sexy.

[Disavowed]

I knew that was coming big sexy.

Ya I'm pretty predictable.