Eliminate Raid Prerequisites for DQ and VON

[bobbryan2]

doublepost

[Emili]

Meh, this is something the devs never ever aware of since the implementation of 20th run thingy.

Velah: 20x von 1-4= 80 repitition of quests

DQ: 20 x 3 = 60 repitition of quests

Both not included the 'pre-raid' itself.

I have read someone vent about getting nothing desirable on 60th Dragon run. Dude, that is 240 times he repeated, yea, he has the right to vent.

As a matter of fact, grinding is inevitable in most MMO, but grinding this way is waaaay off.

Perhaps, just perhaps, players should only need to redo the quests every 20th raid, matching the special end reward, making the grinding more reasonable and acceptable.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the redoing should be removed like Reaver, that is the point of 'getting flagged' like other MMO.

Holy cow... it took me 80 kills of Vellah on my main to get an SoS... is no wonder am so sick of Vons. Now then when it comes to the vons I solo them on most my girls... Heathier and Meallach are the two I've not solo'd the vons with... now the DQ pre-req's they're a tad diff... only Wiz-King and the pre-raid are decent enough to solo well within a decent time-frame for some builds. I do tend to agree with the OP and others that the flagging for these two quests are actually a deterent to the raids. First off... you're on a timer - just like the other raids - then to top it off you must spend bout an hour grinding away to get the flag. I can't recall how many times I had an LFM for one of these raids to have someone join it realize they screwed up on a pre-req quest thus had to drop to rerun it for flagging... or how many times I post-poned the raid to help said person out really quickly to get them into the raid.... Thus it really is a pain in the bum to say the least.

Well, that's a key point. I'd love everyone to be able to easily run raids too. I don't particularly want to exclude anyone from the fun. It would be great if we could all run any raid at any time, without any prerequisite and timer.
But let's face it, whether it's a good thing or not, it's the grinds that keep many powergamers busy with DDO.

This is kind of a silly statement imo (not to be condescending)... the von pre-reqs get done within an hour, these so-called powergamers are still on timers so really they use the timer + 1hr or so ... does it really add to thier grinding - really not much to them? They'd be off looting Vol ot TBF instead, maybe something else. Point is you do not see people so-called grinding for Reaver, Titan or Abbot after initial flag - people do the pre-req quests still because they like doing them, not forced for a flag.

[Raithe]

But let's face it, whether it's a good thing or not, it's the grinds that keep many metagamers busy with DDO.

Fixed it for ya.

[Fallout]

I think once you've run VoN 1-4 on elite (or maybe even have a special permaflag level, elite +1 or 3), you shouldn't have to run them again to kill Velah. It's just a timesink that very few people seem to want to go through just to kill the dragon.

I've never run DQ, so I really can't comment on that one.

I agree, run the preqs and raid on elite, then give you pass to skip them. The preqs are just annoying to say the least because people now can solo them. There's fun time sinks and there's just annoying time sinks and for people running them dozens to over 100 of times, its just on auto-pilot. It adds nothing to value to the gaming experience anymore.

[Mad_Bombardier]

yes please. remove the boring grind of repeating several quests before each raid.

LOTRO has a good system of "raid-locks" where you can only do each raid every few days. If the DDO team wants to limit how often we have access to raid loot they should do something similar. Just increase the raid-lock-out time for these DDO raids.

I've left it out of the discussion so far, but I agree. Re-flagging can go away, but perhaps the timer should increase. 66 hours is a very short amount of time.

[Hafeal]

Whenever you login, you can choose to do what you want. If you really don't have time to do the pre-reqs for the raids, then maybe these raids just aren't for you. If you're ultra-casual, you must expect not to be able to do everything in a game that appeals to a broad audience.
From my experience, it seems the problem is mostly people who always postpone their raid-readiness run in favor of something giving more benefit in the short term, then are all sorry when they can't join a raid when the opportunity comes up.

If the raids were truly designed to be for the select power gamers, then you are making some of your best content for a limited population and the game will ultimately fail. It is the casual player that keeps MMOs alive and profitable.

I believe, if you look at DDO's beginnings, the Dragon raid, for example, was the "culmination" of the game for a long time due to a lack of content. That is no longer the case. In the beginning, requiring constant pre-req runs also kept power gamers busy.

In my opinion, if you want to keep some of your earliest, best content relevant, encourage players in the way you have for subsequent raids - eliminate the pre-reqs. It does 2 things:

1. For the power gamers, they don't mind jumping in and running just the raid in PuG or for guildies;
2. For the casual gamers, after they have run the pre-reqs once, they can join 12 man groups (some of the best fun in the game) without having to know or remember if they are raid ready or make a substantial investment of time to get raid ready.

This "class warfare" of power gamers v. casual players is a lose, lose. DDO needs casual players and making the game easier and friendly in a simple way, like this, is an easy, simple step. I believe the idea of an interactive MMO game is to be "inclusive" not "exclusive".

[Fallout]

But let's face it, whether it's a good thing or not, it's the grinds that keep many powergamers busy with DDO.

It depends, if you want people to have fun or just 'grind'. If you haven't notice, people get bored with grind and leave. Even on elite, a good group can do Von 1-4 in less then 40 mins. Its just boring. Doesn't add any value to gaming fun.

[virloc]

An idea that may have been stated which I would find reasonable is:

Run 20 Von Raids, get your end item reward or Choose to flag the account ( not just that character ) so that they dont have to reflag, but stil do V5/6

Same applied to DQ2. It could then be an "earned" bypass.

Thoughts?

[Grimmlock]

An idea that may have been stated which I would find reasonable is:

Run 20 Von Raids, get your end item reward or Choose to flag the account ( not just that character ) so that they dont have to reflag, but stil do V5/6

Same applied to DQ2. It could then be an "earned" bypass.

Thoughts?

If you do this then the quest timer will reset to 0 and then you have the grind for 20 completions. If they made it so your quest completions do not reset how would that help out the grind for the more casual gamer?

[bobbryan2]

An idea that may have been stated which I would find reasonable is:

Run 20 Von Raids, get your end item reward or Choose to flag the account ( not just that character ) so that they dont have to reflag, but stil do V5/6

Same applied to DQ2. It could then be an "earned" bypass.

Thoughts?

Then it would be a reward only for the grinders, and not for the people that have the hardest time getting ready. All in all, a bad idea, I think. Plus... for 5 characters, that would be 100 velah runs, and a giving up of a pick and choose of 5 pieces of raid loot which you're grinding for in the first place.

Maybe... after 4-5 runs.

[EazyWeazy]

Please get rid of having to re-run VONS 1-4 and DQ prereqs for all the reasons stated above. Thanks.

[maddmatt70]

Please add new raids. Lets face it the problem at its core is the lack of new raids. If they made the abbot playable and with the new raid coming next week and if they add another raid in one month's time for mod 6.1, that would probably be enough for me for a while. I would play those raids exclusively and never set foot in any of the old raids.. I am bored to tears of the old raids.. As such I don't care about prereques, the raids themselves, etc... We have gone a silly long time without a new raid..

[MysticTheurge]

Please add new raids don't fix old ones

...

If they made the abbot playable...

Your post title and this sentence seem contradictory.

[maddmatt70]

Your post title and this sentence seem contradictory.

I have not played out the abbot raid.. It is just not very playable. I have played all the other raids in the game and then some.. I have beaten the abbot raid 4 times hence it is still fresh for me..

[MysticTheurge]

I have not played out the abbot raid.. It is just not very playable.

Right but isn't that "fixing an old raid"?

[maddmatt70]

Right but isn't that "fixing an old raid"?

sigh.. From my view it is raid that has never really reached the state the developers wanted - a raid with fast twitch puzzles that a significant % of the gaming population played. Stop trying to get caught up in the minutia and grasp the meaning of the post. There has not been a playable new raid since the reaver. That quite frankly is unacceptable..

[bobbryan2]

Please add new raids. Lets face it the problem at its core is the lack of new raids. If they made the abbot playable and with the new raid coming next week and if they add another raid in one month's time for mod 6.1, that would probably be enough for me for a while. I would play those raids exclusively and never set foot in any of the old raids.. I am bored to tears of the old raids.. As such I don't care about prereques, the raids themselves, etc... We have gone a silly long time without a new raid..

I actually agree with you... almost.

Which is why I think they should simply change the NPCs options after completing the raids. I think big changes like altering AtDQ to be a 12 person raid would be ultimately wasted time. We have little enough new content to actually go around doing major modifications to existing raids.

That being said... if you honestly believe that changing the dragon and DQ to no longer require the entire chain would actually take developer time away from adding new raids... I simply don't agree with you.

[Cireeric]

Here is another idea. Maybe put the pre-reqs on the Reaver and Titan. Have to re run PoP, Crucible, and Madstone, without the relic collection. HiPS, Ghola Fan, Slavers for Titan.

You want all the raids the same. Here you go.

[strace]

I have been playing DDO off an on for a year and a half, all the while largely what you would consider a casual player. I do believe that flagging requirements prevent casual gamers from accessing the raids, making the high-end content unattainable unless you join a raiding guild or at least a guild with highly organized leadership and active members. I've ran the dragon 5 times, never seen the titan, the DQ, Reaver. I would much prefer all these quests just operated like Tempest Spine: make a raid group, run the adventure. As it stands, its very hard to ever get a party of pugs organized and flagged, and its intimidating to try and get into guild runs when you're a pug -- namely because you don't know the raid as well as the others and you will obviously be a setback.

If we could have direct access to the raids, more casual players would run them. The current dynamics favor those within active guilds. Currently, if you want access to those raids, you pretty much have to seek out and find a large guild. Otherwise, you just never get to run those quests because the moons never align such that eveyone in your group is flagged.

Thats my thinking.

I would love to see DDO abondon the flagging pre-reqs for many of the raids, making these more accessible to me and players like me, who dont play that much or that often, but do not let our subscriptions lapse.

Miscarand

[bobbryan2]

Here is another idea. Maybe put the pre-reqs on the Reaver and Titan. Have to re run PoP, Crucible, and Madstone, without the relic collection. HiPS, Ghola Fan, Slavers for Titan.

You want all the raids the same. Here you go.

Yeah, and let's have every quest take about 30 minutes of landscape just to run to with monsters and no shrine at the end.