General Discussion

If you're a raider and enjoy that whole torturous process, could you please explain to me what it is you like?

Every raid in every game I've ever played has been a fuster cluck!   I hate it.  There's not a lick of strategy or tactical know how involved at all.  Just run in and start blasting.  Sure, some raids fail, but from what I've seen it's all a matter of dumb luck as much as knowing what is going on.  And even if there were any skill involved, just having to do something with that many idiots at one time is enough to make me take a whole bottle of Excederin seeking relief from the pain.

Whada'Ya mean there's no strategy involved?

I've found this to be a game by game thing. Some games have terrible raids while others have raids being the most entertaining and rewarding aspect in that they are very challenging and require strict coordination and knowledge and in return give you great rewards :P.

Originally posted by War_Eagle

If you're a raider and enjoy that whole torturous process, could you please explain to me what it is you like?

Every raid in every game I've ever played has been a fuster cluck!   I hate it.  There's not a lick of strategy or tactical know how involved at all.  Just run in and start blasting.  Sure, some raids fail, but from what I've seen it's all a matter of dumb luck as much as knowing what is going on.  And even if there were any skill involved, just having to do something with that many idiots at one time is enough to make me take a whole bottle of Excederin seeking relief from the pain.

Who's the guy in that video, Scythe?  Ragnaros?  He looks like a wimp.  Must be a WoW mob.  Although I must admit, the spell blasts directed at him look pretty sweet.

Originally posted by crmznoutlw16

I've found this to be a game by game thing. Some games have terrible raids while others have raids being the most entertaining and rewarding aspect in that they are very challenging and require strict coordination and knowledge and in return give you great rewards :P.

God what a sight when Ian would break loose...three guilds decimated in the blink of an eye.

Originally posted by Zindaihas

 

Originally posted by War_Eagle

If you're a raider and enjoy that whole torturous process, could you please explain to me what it is you like?

Every raid in every game I've ever played has been a fuster cluck!   I hate it.  There's not a lick of strategy or tactical know how involved at all.  Just run in and start blasting.  Sure, some raids fail, but from what I've seen it's all a matter of dumb luck as much as knowing what is going on.  And even if there were any skill involved, just having to do something with that many idiots at one time is enough to make me take a whole bottle of Excederin seeking relief from the pain.

If what you say is true, raiding has really been dumbed down in today's MMOs.  In EQ, a guild really had to know what it was doing to kill the big mobs.  It required a strategy and a well coordinated attack.  It's too bad if things have changed.

 

Who's the guy in that video, Scythe?  Ragnaros?  He looks like a wimp.  Must be a WoW mob.  Although I must admit, the spell blasts directed at him look pretty sweet.

Uh... yeah... the statement was meant to be sarcastic and the video was a stab at raiders that take offense to the OP's conclusions...

Man, I must be losing my touch or something.....

I'm a former "veteran" raider of about two years.. started with Molten Core in WoW and was in a guild farming black temple until November 2007, so I should be able to answer this question based on my experience of raiding.

Problem is, I can't. I don't KNOW why I kept spending 3-4 hours at a time with a group of 39 (and post-TBC, 24) other raiders. It was probably just because it was the only way that WoW offered me (at the time, at least) to really progress my character gear-wise and it was nice getting to see the content in the instances.

I quit raiding because frankly, the time investment was just sucking my life dry. I'm habitually a casual gamer and WoW was the first (and last) game that I've ever played in a "hardcore" way.

A note on tactics; I feel I can say this having experienced every raid boss from Lucifron up to Illidan; WoW raid fights DO require tactics, but of a watered-down and frustrating sort.

Many boss fights rely 100% on one person in the raid doing exactly the right thing at exactly the right time, which is the most frustrating thing in the world when you have a boss down to 10% and wipe when your tank lags for a split second and misses a shield block or something.

PvP and Heroic Badge "welfare" epics were the best thing that Blizzard ever did for WoW.

Ive raided with a few guilds.

In the beginning, Ages. Which went on to be insomnia, which is one of the top competative raid guilds right now.

Then I quit for a bit, came back and joined a middle of the road raiding guild. It was a little less hardcore but meh, it wasnt bad.

FINALLY, I quit, went to play other games with a bunch of the people I raided with. Now second year of university we decided to come back to WoW... low and behold im raiding again and loving it.
This time tho its a lot more fun and a lot less job, that and were progressing rediculously fast to boot.

For me raiding is hanging out with friends.
If it gets frustrating for people we just stop right there and do something else. I know most everyone in my raid. Sure we had to pick up the odd few people to flesh out the ranks, but for the most part I know everyone in my raid group and would gladly do an instance with them, chat with em, heck they populate half my buddy codes in brawl...

What draws me to it is that its fun, challanging and aslong as your doing it for fun, it can be LOADS of fun.
We dont wipe into the wee hours of the night snapping at eachother... Hell, we barely even snap at eachother.
We kill eachother when somebody gets MC'd... we laugh, we cry (from laughing so hard) and we have fun...

There is definatly the challange that is there. The ability to say you've done something that other people say they want to be able to do is quite nice... its also fun to watch you and your friends slowly get better gear. As you guys go from nobodies, to people with decent gear and your guild name starts to become recognized from all the time you spent slaughtering alliance.

Its kinda different this time around, the first time it was because I could feel a sense of accomplishment. Which was something you couldnt get as a highschool grad working at London Drugs (department store in canada). It was something I did in the summer to toot my own horn, as well I met some really cool people.

Before that I was in highschool and again, there is nothing really to accomplish in highschool. Every asian kid and his dog has straight A's... the girl who walked away with top student probably studied every hour of the day and is gona burn out and mop floors by the time she was 20. Me, I raided. I had some of the best gear across servers. I could post strats for fights and get 100's of thank yous. I could pump out excell charts and work with smart people all across the world to min/max things.

It was something I could do, that gave me a sense of accomplishment... which is what it does for a lot of people.... now if thats all you ever do with your life :P there might be some people laughing, but ultimatly if it makes you happy, why the hell not?

I have my share of raiding, not just in WoW.  I do not enjoy raiding that much.  My comments below refers not just to WoW.

Raiding is somewhat understood as the end game content, the big instances or zones where we need x (24, 40, or 12 say in LOTRo) people to show up in time, of the right class comb, listening to vent, disciplined and following a leader who knows what to do and how to lead.  Discipline and understanding of both the class we play and the instance/mob we handle.  PUGs is a different story, but serious raiding with a PUG is a hit or miss.

Its a big deal, indeed, to get people to finish a raid that last anything from 2-6 hours.  Anything longer than that its a torture.  I come to play a game for fun.  Disciplined work like raids are fun once in a while, and fun during the exploratory stages when no one has the exact formula worked out.  Fun for the sake of exploring a zone, and dying.  When we know its a total wipe, and that we will have to restart, sometimes we just jump into the lava, or run inside as far as possible, just to see what is in the next room.  Yeah in a way, its like a kamikazi dash into a bad zone.

But "hard core" raiding in some games like WoW, becomes a liability.  Its more unforgiving than work.  You must show up xx% of times or you lose your seat in the raid team, you becomes reserve.  Raiding becomes raiding for the sake of preparing for the next raiding zone, almost 7 days a week.  If you do not collect set #4 in time when the guild move to raid zone #5, you are history.  Even my boss at work is sometimes more forgiving.  I remember some raid leader sneer over vent at some vet member who said that he was ill and can only log on to apply for sick leave.  You have to apply for sick leave in a game.  That was my last hard core raid, that evening, I moved on.

I do not doubt that raiding is just one form of party exploration, at the other hand of solo-group scale.  Excess soloing it becomes boring, excess raiding like that, it becomes tiring.  Some kind of mix I say, and pls, no more 8 hour a day, 5 day tour to explore a zone.  Plane of Air, anyone?  I am too old for that kind of thing.