I'm disappointed

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Hello everyone,

I'm disappointed about the new Raid. I had hoped that there would be a new low level raid. To get Newbies and rather casual lowbie-players more into the game.

But no.

Now I read that the Raid is only for level 30.

Once again the end game playing crowd was catered. They always get what they want, even if it means to take away things from other kinds of players.

To me, this basically means : There simply are no new players to the game. If a given part of the player base gets catered that often, well, that means to me that other kinds of players simply do not exist anymore.

I'm very disappointed, but no-one will understand me anyway. If one profits from something, then why be empathic with those who don't ? That doesn't make any sense at all to think of those who don't profit from something if one is part of the people who do profit from the same thing.

The times the lower levels were important are long gone. Only the high levels and end game counts now.

And players will ask me : "Why should I bother ?"

Alrik

[GoldyGopher]

I am curious as why you thought, or rather hoped, that the new raid would have a heroic version.

It has been a while since we had a Heroic Raid Released with the Lord of Blades and Master Artificer and the Fall of Truth was the last Epic Raid released.

[Enoach]

I understand the desire to see raids at lower levels, but if memory serves me, most raids when added to DDO were added at the top of the current level range. I think the only time I can think of that broke this rule was Chronoscope.

I think this is because the 'Raid Scene' is seen as an 'End Game' audience. Giving this group something to do while they are capped out.

If they did a heroic Fey Wild raid, I'm thinking it would have to be in the Level 6/7 range. How many newer players are ready to raid at that time in their development?

[Annex]

In my opinion, you are being extremely unfair.

The entire Past Life Feat system was designed to entice players back into Heroic levels. On Khyber, groups regularly form for Borderlands, Korthos, and other very low level stuff. Heroic The Vault of Night runs appear at least once every few days. Less often, I see groups for Heroic The Chronoscope and Heroic Tempest's Spine. If your server does not provide such opportunities, I am sorry.

Part of the reason the developers release overpowered new Class/Enhancement Tree/Race options is to provide an on-ramp for new and low time invested players. Anyone willing to try the latest and greatest and die a few times can very probably contribute in most Heroic Reaper Mode 1 groups. Yes, veterans also take advantage of such things but on Khyber, they mostly form groups in private channels and run at much higher difficulties.

The developers also regularly boost basic Classes to make them perform better in Heroic Reaper Mode. Perhaps two years ago, Sorcerers were boosted. About a year ago, Paladins were boosted. The current Class Balance Pass pulls back on Sorcerers and Paladins but pushes up a bunch of other stuff. New and less time invested players trying to join Heroic groups running Reaper Mode 1 will benefit.

Every single new Quest includes a Heroic counterpart. Feywild is all Minimum Level 5/6. The Promise of Fire is Minimum Level 6. The Lost Gatekeepers is Minimum Level 3. Keep on the Borderlands is Minimum Level 1/2. That represents a year worth of Quest updates, all aimed at very low levels. Any new or low time invested player willing to run those quests can pull out excellent equipment for Level 1 to 6, again representing an on-ramp.

The new Raid is about the only recent addition not specifically targeted at new players but low time invested players can still benefit. Anyone willing to run a brand new character to Level 30 can join in. It really does not take a gigantic time investment and with the Raid months late, no one can say he or she did not have time to prepare.

To be clear, I totally get that when High Time Characters in good configurations group with Low Time Characters in poor configurations, DDO becomes really unfun for people playing the latter. That is a different issue. You are making the argument that the developers only cater to end game players and that is demonstrably false.

Now, a heartfelt suggestion from a poor player--myself. Make a brand new character. Choose the most over powered Class and Race combination currently available, probably a Paladin wielding a Greatsword. Take a few weeks and run that character all the way to 30 running Elite and Reaper Mode 1. Leave the character there. Every time you sign in and feel like joining a group, look for Level 30 stuff at difficulty Reaper Mode 1 or less. If you see anything, join with the new character. Just play. Do not try for specific quests or specific equipment. Do not fixate on making the character better. Just play. At the end of every session, give any named stuff you found a look. If it works for your character, equip it. If not, stick it in the Vault for later. Do that for a few months. Do not reset the character to make another go round. Stay at level 30 and play. Do not worry about dying. Give the character a dumb name. Make him look stupid. This character is just for fun. Do not invest any emotional energy into the character. Just play. If you end up in a quest with a jerk who belongs in Reaper Mode 10, wait for the end of the quest, then drop and find another group. Let it go. It is my sincere belief that after doing this for a few months, you will find numerous people in your exact situation and your lot will vastly improve.

I am in the process of doing what I just described. Give it a try. The absolute worse thing that can happen is that you end up with very stupid looking storage character.

[Gniewomir]

Lets be honest, it's ddo. I've got nothing against heroic raids, in fact im a fan of any raids and it would be nice to run them at low lvls, but again: it's ddo. Except TS and von last time i run heroic raid in full raid group was maybe 3? probably more, around 5 years ago? In 2020 i did around 40 reincarnations on one character (+alts, including alts at different servers), i run ts every life and i don't think i had full party even once. Whats the point of creating heroic raids if it's impossible to fill them anyway and you would run them with the party of the size of normal questing group? Especially at lvl 6, when majority of good players blast through those lvls and first day after reincarnation they're already not in correct lvl range? Especially when low lvl gear is easly replaceable and noone would bother with farming gear from low lvl raid.

To summarise: yes, i would love some heroic raids to run, but in current state of ddo i see no reason to add any, cause except very rare situtations there'll be no ppl to run them with. Hell, even newest endgame raids are pretty hard to fill in my timezone earlier than evening/night (tho ppl who play in peak hours probably have different opinion).

[Zess-wolf]

Well, in my opinion, why make a raid at a lower level if people barely spend time on it? You stay on higher levels for more time, thats why they make it endgame

Chronoscope i only run when i see a lfm for it(and i like the raid)

[Loromir]

Hello everyone,

I'm disappointed about the new Raid. I had hoped that there would be a new low level raid. To get Newbies and rather casual lowbie-players more into the game.

But no.

Now I read that the Raid is only for level 30.

Once again the end game playing crowd was catered. They always get what they want, even if it means to take away things from other kinds of players.

To me, this basically means : There simply are no new players to the game. If a given part of the player base gets catered that often, well, that means to me that other kinds of players simply do not exist anymore.

I'm very disappointed, but no-one will understand me anyway. If one profits from something, then why be empathic with those who don't ? That doesn't make any sense at all to think of those who don't profit from something if one is part of the people who do profit from the same thing.

The times the lower levels were important are long gone. Only the high levels and end game counts now.

And players will ask me : "Why should I bother ?"

Alrik

Most people won't bother with running heroic raids. It wouldn't be worth their dev time to build a heroic raid.

[Tsutti]

Hello everyone,

I'm disappointed about the new Raid. I had hoped that there would be a new low level raid. To get Newbies and rather casual lowbie-players more into the game.

But no.

Now I read that the Raid is only for level 30.

Once again the end game playing crowd was catered. They always get what they want, even if it means to take away things from other kinds of players.

To me, this basically means : There simply are no new players to the game. If a given part of the player base gets catered that often, well, that means to me that other kinds of players simply do not exist anymore.

I'm very disappointed, but no-one will understand me anyway. If one profits from something, then why be empathic with those who don't ? That doesn't make any sense at all to think of those who don't profit from something if one is part of the people who do profit from the same thing.

The times the lower levels were important are long gone. Only the high levels and end game counts now.

And players will ask me : "Why should I bother ?"

Alrik

Well... I don't think newbies actually want to run a raid necessarily, at least not in heroics. No one cares about raids in heroics save the lvl 10 ones usually (and only bc those are easy and very good xp). The only place anyone usually cares about raids are at cap, so raids are released at cap. Don't often see FoT or CitW lfms, and when you do, they usually permit lvl 30s. The coordination and number of players required for raids almost seems to me like it would drive many new players away if they thought lots of quests were like that. The one exception I can think of is if a new player did try a raid at some point and love the experience, and wanted to run more where they could do something, then there's a slight issue in the fact that all the cap raids are gonna be very rough on a new player and most of the raids to run are at cap.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

I'm counting (according to the Wiki) :

13 raids at level 32
4 Raids at level 30
7 Raids at level 21-25
6 Raids at level 17-20
1 Raid at level 14
1 Raid at level 6
6 Raids at level 10-12

out of 33 Raids in total.

I define "end game" as level 20-32 here, and that makes 24 out of 32 raids for the end game crowd.

Shows me very much, how much the end game crowd is catered. And at the same time, the content rot is for real, regarding raids.

Apparingly it is not desired to get Newbies and Casuals into the real of Raids before end game at all. And especially not as a "training ground" for raids ( the Chronoscope is quite difficult at level with no past lives in the back ! ) The few mid-game raids (10-17/18) are not played at all, I guess.

Even far worse : A LOT of the end game raids require NO FLAGGING AT ALL ( 11 out of 13 level 32 Raids ! ),

meanwhile ALL of the low-level to mid-level raids require COMPLEX flagging mechanics ! (Cronoscope & Tempest's Spine being the only outliers here.)

This is just mockery. The end game crowd (level 32) gets its raids without having to do ANYTHING pre-raid !

And the total opposite for almost EVERY SINGLE RAID at low- to mid-level !

How fair is that ?

[TekkenDevil]

You'll need more than a Chronoscope 2.0 to get newbies into Raiding.
Raiding is a private grouping privilege for socialites and people who would co-ordinate their playtimes and just in general make a big chore out of DDO.

If you want the game to attract new players, you have to revive the LFM tab and make co-op in DDO viable with randoms again. A level 5/6 Raid won't do jack. You have to make Raids something people can just jump right into, no bullcrap.

[TitusOvid]

I'm counting (according to the Wiki) :

13 raids at level 32
4 Raids at level 30
7 Raids at level 21-25
6 Raids at level 17-20
1 Raid at level 14
1 Raid at level 6
6 Raids at level 10-12

out of 33 Raids in total.

Help me out real quick:

1 raid at level 6:
The Chronoscope

6 raids at level 10-12:
Tempest Spine
The Twilight Forge
The Vault of Night
Zawabi's Revenge
?
?

1 raid at level 14:
The Reaver's Fate

6 raids at level 17-20:
Accursed Ascension
The Shroud
A Vision of Destruction
Hound of Xoriat
The Master Artificer heroic
The Lord of Blades heroic
Tower of Despair

7 raids at level 21-25:
Caught in the Web
The Fall of Truth
The Chronoscope epic
The Vault of Night epic
Zawabi's revenge epic
?
?

4 raids at level 30:
Defiler of the Just
Fire on Thunder Peak
Temple of the Deathwyrm
Mark of Death

13 raids at level 32:
Leg Hound of Xoriat
Leg Tempest Spine
Old Baba's Hut
Riding the Storm Out
The Codex and the Shroud
The Curse of Strahd
Killing Time
Too Hot to Handle
Project Nemesis
Leg Vision of Destruction
Leg Master Artificer
Leg Lord of Blades
Dryad and the Demigod




The main reason is, and please correct me, if this is different on your server or any other, how many players are at the appropriate level range for a heroic raid? Even heroic VoN won't fill most of the time because players are just too fast to high. So it gets shortmanned, if you find 2+ people.
I just throw a number out but especially in < level 10 I breeze through levels, if I am really really slow it takes me maybe 3 hours for 1 level with flower sniffing, coffee breaks and without xp pots. I run a lot of quests extra for fun and lose xp from time to time but I won't do that every life. Raids at endgame are more attractive because way more people are able to participate. The whole concept just works better at endgame.

And flagging mechanics for raids are from a time long gone. Sometimes the devs find time to make it easier, see Twilight Forge and heroic Abbot. And those are the only heroic raids I see on the board from time to time because of the favor and/or the quiver. And although they are possible to be soloed, it is a pita.

I get that you want more raids in heroics, by all means yes, but there need to be fundamental changes to make it worthwhile. Those are possible of course but I don't agree that those should be a high priority.

Sorry.
And cheers,
Titus.

[Wizard1406]

Raiding is a private grouping privilege for socialites and people who would co-ordinate their playtimes and just in general make a big chore out of DDO.

If you want the game to attract new players, you have to revive the LFM tab and make co-op in DDO viable with randoms again. A level 5/6 Raid won't do jack. You have to make Raids something people can just jump right into, no bullcrap.

Agree the game doesn't really have the population for a significant amount of PUG raids outside of US primetime - on PUG friendly servers. But that's sleeping or work etc. time for players in other time zones or people with a different pattern, like shift workers.

Please make mega-server and/or attract and try to retain more new and casuals players.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

And flagging mechanics for raids are from a time long gone.

THen why are there no new lower-to-mid level raids with no flagging mechanics ?

Why are there no easy to accomplish raids at all ? So that every new player could learn what a raid in general is and means ?

I'm getting more and more the impression as if raids here are just a present to the main end game players. To some closed circles of players who don't care much about the rest of the game, as it looks to me.

[Epicsoul]

Raiding is a private grouping privilege for socialites and people who would co-ordinate their playtimes and just in general make a big chore out of DDO.

A private grouping privilege for socialites and people who...make a big chore out of DDO? Tekken, I've played on both Orien and Khyber, both of which see many PUG raids on any given day. I join random raids often, normally only taking 5 minutes to fill (raid dependent). The raiding environment you describe is far from my experience. Raiding isn't a privilege for the few, but available to anyone that's willing to put in some personal effort.

[Bunker]

For the most part, every raid that has ever been released was an end game raid. The only difference is that the level cap has increased, making it appear as if there has been heroic raids that were released.

That is all.

[rabidfox]

A private grouping privilege for socialites and people who...make a big chore out of DDO? Tekken, I've played on both Orien and Khyber, both of which see many PUG raids on any given day. I join random raids often, normally only taking 5 minutes to fill (raid dependent). The raiding environment you describe is far from my experience. Raiding isn't a privilege for the few, but available to anyone that's willing to put in some personal effort.

That's my experience too. PUGs are up all the time and you'll even see people who've been running r10 progressive guild raiding in random LFM raid pugs; Khyber is just awesome like that.

[TitusOvid]

THen why are there no new lower-to-mid level raids with no flagging mechanics ?

Why are there no easy to accomplish raids at all ? So that every new player could learn what a raid in general is and means ?

I'm getting more and more the impression as if raids here are just a present to the main end game players. To some closed circles of players who don't care much about the rest of the game, as it looks to me.

You only picked out my comment on the flagging.
There is just a handful of raids I would call difficult or even complex in this game. This is ofc my point of view and I know every raid pretty good. For someone who doesn't want to put in the effort to learn how a raid works, I assume raids in this game seem to be difficult.
But all of them can be shortmannend or even solo'd. So it is possible to learn what raiding means in general, if they want to. And I assume that there are helpful players on every server.

I will quote myself again to emphasize what my general point was:

The main reason is [...] how many players are at the appropriate level range for a heroic raid? Even heroic VoN won't fill most of the time because players are just too fast to high. So it gets shortmanned, if you find 2+ people.
[...]
Raids at endgame are more attractive because way more people are able to participate. The whole concept just works better at endgame.

I get that you want more raids in heroics, by all means yes, but there need to be fundamental changes to make it worthwhile. Those are possible of course but I don't agree that those should be a high priority.

If I am at endgame, I do raids and then I go back to TR. I don't know numbers but I am guessing that the main population is doing it this way. Furthermore I have at least 1 character parked at endgame so that I can participate, if I like. This is the practice of the majority of players I know but that doesn't mean this is the majority in general. But your

... if raids here are just a present to the main end game players. To some closed circles of players who don't care much about the rest of the game, as it looks to me.

is just plain wrong.
There are a lot of possibilities to raid and not much effort needed. The best chances you got at 20+ but why is that a problem?

Cheers,
Titus.

[TitusOvid]

Agree the game doesn't really have the population for a significant amount of PUG raids outside of US primetime - on PUG friendly servers. But that's sleeping or work etc. time for players in other time zones or people with a different pattern, like shift workers.

Please make mega-server and/or attract and try to retain more new and casuals players.

That is not correct for Orien. It is one of the lowest populated servers, yet or maybe therefor we got mostly PUG raids and we have a decent raiding scene on European peak time as well as US.
I tell you why that is. A good portion of players put in an effort to build up this scene, to connect with others, to network outside of the guild or a closed circle of friends. And this wasn't done in 1 week or even 3 month. This took a very long time but it payed off.
"Build it and they will come"

That doesn't mean we got enough players right now. More are better of course.

Cheers,
Titus.

[slarden]

I am ok with level cap raid only. If they put another raid in like THTH I would like to see a heroic version for the simple reason a training ground would be helpful.

Other than that heroic raiding is mostly run by small groups now and I would rather have devs put their focus on the end game version.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

and I would rather have devs put their focus on the end game version.

In other words, content rot is fine for you.