Info gathering: Raiding

[OnyxBlade]

Assuming that I have someone that has an interest in working towards scheduling some "raiding", How interested are you in going?

In case you aren't aware: There's a few raid instances in the game.

There's Helegrod, which is a rather large 24 person raid instance. The ultimate goal is to take down a resurrected Dragon

There's the Rift, which is a rather large 12 person raid instance. The ultimate goal is to take down a lesser Balrog.

There's the Vile Maw, which is a small 12 person raid in Moria. The ultimate goal is to take down the giant squid.

There's also a couple other non-instanced raids, Bogbereth and the lord of Imlad Balcorth for example.

[Zib]

Phat lutez!

Zibgar is a healy/buffy kind of minstrel for grouping goodness.

[OnyxBlade]

Just wanted to let folks know.... you're NOT signing up for anything here. Just capturing info to see where the kin sees raiding fitting into their daily lives.

[katarnus]

I'm probably a little too casual for very much raiding. I mean, I like having nice stuff and getting nice stuff, but I don't really obsess over it. Most raids I've been to in the past were like, "I wanna go and see it" So then I do go and see it once or twice and I'm satisfied.

With the dog and family it's pretty hard for me to do anything much these days without having to go afk a bunch, so I'll more than likely never be very hardcore with any kind of raids. That being said, I wouldn't mind tagging a long a time or two if needed.

[Ascahilion]

I'm between "No desire" and "Casual". I understand that this is an exploratory Poll. With Moria, should the Kin start to focus heavily on Raiding again I can work on a lot of Solo things. Mid level characters will suffer but there is always the option of belonging to more than one Kin.

[Zabrak]

I'm between casual and serious. If we work out a schedule, I would be into going on a semi-regular basis.

[OnyxBlade]

My idea is that I'd like to see the rift, but like a bunch of you I don't have enough continuous time to do an entire rift run in one sitting. The LOTRO Raids keep their settings for 3 or 4 days at a time, meaning that you go in on day 1, kill bosses 1,2 and 3... On day 2, you go in and bosses 1,2,3 are still dead. So, if you schedule 3 evenings in a row, theoretically, you should be able to see everything.

We'd have to research it of course, but I believe the rift is a weekly reset? And when we used to do it, it was on Tuesday and Friday night. We got a little better each time we went through, learned a few things, etc, etc. At the end of our last batch of tries, we started having a few folks go on vacation, etc, etc and it broke down.

I'm between casual/serious as well. I'd like to give it a few good tries and see how far we get, but in my normal, casual manner. In other words.. as long as it's still fun, i'm in.

[Ascahilion]

The great thing about the Maw is that its a small time investment. The bad thing is that you need a full suit of Rift gear to have a chance of survival.

In any event, I'd be willing to give it a shot once in a while. LIs should make things easier though I've been told that the Rift was 'adjusted' for the new combat system and therefore is a bit harder.

One major concern is Wound and Disease debuffs. If you have a Lore Master along the 6 man he is with is 'covered' but we can no longer Heal in combat and Outside of a Fellowship at the same time..... in other words if its a Raid, which ever group has the LM has Leechcraft and Laying on of Hands.

[OnyxBlade]

And apparently having a LM with the traited wound heal is a REQUIREMENT right now. Turbine is "looking into it"

[Delaney]

I was torn between whether to pick casual or the once a week option. I'd love to see us finish the Rift, and I'd like to finish my set of armor, as well as help others get theirs. Also, I've heard that the Rift is still challenging, even for level 60's which alleviates some worry.

If this takes three sessions in a week period every once in a while (and is fun!), then no problem. The flip side is that I'm not going to lock myself into going four times a week every few weeks. Blech.

I'm optimistic that we should be able to work something out if and when there are enough interested people. It really was a blast and it was gratifying to see us improve as we went along.

[Bubub]

My time does not allow except in the most rare occasions to be a member of the "raid group" per se. But if elected Fellowship Groupie, a run into both the Rift and Helegrod will be organized very soonly just for the experience of going in.
I also will be organizing a Pillager Group Experience (aka PGE) with that big ol'spider.

[Zabrak]

Dec 4, 2008 17:52:18 GMT -5 Delaney said:

If this takes three sessions in a week period every once in a while (and is fun!), then no problem. The flip side is that I'm not going to lock myself into going four times a week every few weeks.

Well said, exactly how I feel. We should have a week every now and then that will be "raid week".

[thelonius]

For me I really liked our old raiding schedule. I'm not saying we should try to mimic it (we shouldn't), but for those who didn't know there were a few months where we would raid the rift Tuesday and Friday (9:00 PM EST - 12:00), every other week. Three hours max (I could have gone longer ). I will say from my perspective the three hours certainly was kept to and at that point it was over, no playing another half an hour.

For me the raids were about: can 12 of us work together to beat the content! Loot was all by roll and a reward for the challenge. The Raids are fun, with challenges Far beyond that of most outside and solo questing stuff.

I felt like Turbine's lack of creating any content for older leveled 50's players is what kept things so quiet for our kin. Rather than the kin being absorbed by Rifting, I don't think there was much else of interest to complete for maybe 6 months or more until Moria, what was a 50's to do but Rifting for the ultimate in challenging combat?? There was a time when the instances at Annuminas took more than 3 hours. It was obvious that 50's solo characters were bored of no new content... Sorry I'm ranting....

Anyhow, my final comment on Rifting was that it is not so bad time wise. The raids happened after typical working hours and were planned. For me it was like going to book club, actually easier for me to plan time for than just random Pillager PUG. I told my wife you have your book club meetings, I plan to video game with friends.

PS. I won't even bother to say I have time in the month of December. I wouldn't even consider starting raiding until the second week of January or later. By spring though I'd be a definite member of raiding groups...

[Zabrak]

Dec 5, 2008 9:43:21 GMT -5 thelonius said:

For me it was like going to book club, actually easier for me to plan time for than just random Pillager PUG. I told my wife you have your book club meetings, I plan to video game with friends.

That's true and is a good point. Like we're planning on going to CD tonight. I asked my wife, "do we have any plans tonight?" She said no and I told her, "great, cause I'm playing my game tonight then." She said that was fine. She knows when I plan it like that it means, "don't bother me, I'm going to be busy." Just as if I went out to a movie with a friend, which happens to be something she did the night before.

Normally I sit on the couch with my laptop. Tonight I'm planning on sitting in our office on the desktop PC with the door closed. A real difference there.

If it becomes too often, then it starts to be a problem. Just like if she went to the movies every night it would be a problem.

[Loraxx]

I would love to support raiding. I was thinking something between causal and weekly. Maybe 2 times per month or 1 time per month scheduled and pick ups along the way if more interest develops.

I assume raiding starts at level 45?

My good friend Loryela will also likely have the same view as mean on this. Loryela is currently trying to join the kin.


Loraxx

[thelonius]

Raiding is pretty much level 50 type stuff though you can go in at a lower level depending... Fortunately, I think you're around level 40 and unless you try not to (Pillagers are encouraged to keep their own pace, whether fast or slow ), it won't be long before you level to 50 or higher...

Glad you're interested though! Sounds like you're willing to commit a similar amount of time as me, Can't wait for the adventures ;D

Dec 24, 2008 16:41:05 GMT -5 Loraxx said:

I would love to support raiding. I was thinking something between causal and weekly. Maybe 2 times per month or 1 time per month scheduled and pick ups along the way if more interest develops.

I assume raiding starts at level 45?

My good friend Loryela will also likely have the same view as mean on this. Loryela is currently trying to join the kin.


Loraxx

[Pierian Cakemore]

One of the problems with running the old rift schedule is several members of our Kin are unable to fit that schedule. It's simply too late for those of us who have to get up early in the morning the next day. If we can get enough people I'd suggest maybe 2 sets of raid (or even regular fellowship) groups. Really dislike the idea of missing out a majority of the group instances due to the need of sleep.

Though this isn't a raid I would like to start hosting a weekly instance on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. This way we can do the class quests and gather armour pieces for members of the kin and maybe get a chance to take on the Vile Maw in the future (requirement of nearly a full set of the high end Moria armours due to the huge amount of dread involved).

[OnyxBlade]

That would be great Pie! I'm looking forward to it!