Runes of Magic US / AU

To answer an earlier comment from a different thread, I decided to make this one. There have been many attempts to try and find fun things to do in rom, like Project ALT and blueson's similar project, where you take new chars and try to run older content without using new stats to make your life easy. Here's the comment that spawned this Thread...

Quoted

I think this doesn't just apply to mages, but is an issue in general with
this game. Instances are Dps races. Support classes haven't been popular
for a long time now. Many of the class combo's that nobody ever plays
because they "aren't vaible" are actually viable. its just that they
aren't viable in OP DPS - they're support classes. And you can see where
they end up.

Instances are dps races because that's what players on RoM want them to be. I'm not trying to call people out, or be rude or anything of the sort, just stating my observations. Why are k/w's brought on runs, even if they are alts ? If people wanted strat fights and didn't care about burning bosses, any tank should do, not just k/w, and k/w alts wouldn't be necessary. Why are buff alts brought out to world bosses like Kolanda and Taren? Why are buff alts used in siege? Why do people wait to do certain fights until attack sigils spawn?

It is natural for players to make use of everything possible, but in doing so they reduce the game down to Burns.

You don't HAVE to burn bosses. There are strats, that you can purposefully try out -- don't burn the bosses on purpose. Or get an army of mages together, who can't burn the bosses because they don't have all the debuffs/buffs to make increase damage, and do the strats yourselves. Out of accident one day, on 4th boss Bethomia we failed to burn it -- we were lvl 85 i think, so yes you are all allowed to laugh at us. However, from doing things randomly, we managed to make the boss attackable again, and the few remaining players finished it off. Even easy bosses, like 4th boss Beth hm, have strats to them that you could learn so that weaker groups can do the instance or so that stronger groups have fun.

Mind you, some bosses like 1st boss grotto are horrifically laggy, and burning might be the only way for people to do them. On that particular boss, we get players dc'ing or unable to attack or do anything, let alone executs any game mechanics. But fights like that are only a small portion of the game.

The game is all burn because that's what's easiest, and that's what is working. That's what's getting the gear with the fewest deaths, in the least amount of time. Its a conscious choice on the part of the players. Why did all the scouts re roll r/m ? So they can be a high damage class, and burn bosses. Why does no one appreciate support role classes anymore? Because they choose to be blinded by super high dps.

RW can easily be blamed for making things too easy and I am most definitely not saying that we as a community are the only ones at fault. But this was foreseeable years ago. As level caps go up and skills get upgraded, as weapon damage goes up, base damage of even ungeared skills goes up. I hit harder naked with my fayleod's axe then geared players hit during lvl 55 cap. Yes, RW should have anticipated this and done something about it. Or maybe they did reallise it, and didn't think it was an issue -- it is their game, their product and they can do with it what they want. They are also responsible for making certain classes very strong, and others weak in comparison. It will anger the player base, and threads and discussion will take place with the masses asking for change -- but they don't HAVE to change, just like you don't have to play. I'm not saying you should all quit playing but if you find things to easy, try something different.

In any event, the game is a burn because people want it to be one. When boss fights are "too hard" the solution almost ALWAYS seems to be "get more dps". Why can't people do Tomb of the Seven Heroes? Because they can't do strats.. Why do groups struggle with Belathis? Because they can't learn strats. Yeah sure 4th boss might be a pain, but there MUST be some way to kill it, without a c/m nuking the adds or 9 r/m's burning him before anyhting happens.

For any boss you can Kite the adds, bring more healers, use two tanks, stun or interrupt this skill or that skill, click on something, run to this spot when boss says message ABC, etc etc.... instead, we get groups of 9 r/m 1 k/w and 2 healers with 10s or less boss fights. That's a player choice, not a game maker issue as far as I see it. And the consequences reach far and wide.

What bosses are those (serious question)? There is a difference between "no one knows the strat because the boss has always died in 10s" vs a "burn or die".

I think there are ways to avoid the death on "burn or die" bosses, just people don't try hard enough.

And why I started this thread was because there are a lot of ppl who have been saying "rom is just burn". I know what k/w does, I asked the question because its not necessary to kill a boss. Bring a k/s tank, and do the strat like soul said. But people go so far out of their way to burn bosses, and then whine and complain that the game is too easy or that all of rom is just burns -- THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE MAKING IT A BURN!!! /end rant

I've heard/read of groups pulling the boss to one side, and having second tank, healer and dps groups to down the adds. It's not a hard strat in theory-- bring 3-4 healers, 2 tanks and and split your dps up -- you don't even need to dps the boss itself when the adds have spawned. Put all your dps on one add, kill it fast, put all your dps on the 2nd add, kill it fast, go back to the boss....wait a minute that sounds EXACTLY like the hackman strategy...you just need more healers and tanks to do it.

That is not a "burn or die boss" its a "we're too lazy (or don't have the required classes) to get a proper group to do the strat" boss.

Any other burn or die bosses? Real ones please, not ones ppl choose not to do the strat on?

1st boss grotto you can serenstum hate's mission to prevent the damage, and run away from any cast skill to avoid damage. But the lag on that one is so bad, that yeah, I guess that is one I will concede to. Thus far I know of 1 "burn or die boss".

As I've stressed and I am trying to make people realise, grotto can be burned but is not a "burn or die" instance. You can do strat for 2nd boss, salt deflagration you can serenstum or run away from (its close range) and try to dps the adds down with a large group of healers, making it a "non" burn boss.

4th boss grotto, there has to be a strat. We've not burned him and survived long enough until he goes orange, and uses a huge aoe that 1 shots us. Surely there's a strat to avoid it -- maybe hide behind the columns in the back of the room or somehting. Even if there is no reasonable strat to that boss, the whole of the instance and rom "can" be burned, but doens't have to be.

Let me stress the purpose of this thread once again --- rom doesn't have to be a full burn game if you want to try to do the strats. Stop bringing 9 r/m's or w/e to burn the bosses, and you might have fun trying to do strat on 2nd boss Grotto instead of nuking it in 5s.

5th boss grotto is a joke, but he has a strat too! He does some jump eventually, and might be similar to 1st boss dod? I'm not really sure -- I burn bosses too, but the point of this thread is to stress the fact that it doesn't need to be that way.

2nd boss GCH, some groups kill ardmond first, which triggers the dog to attack players randomly. At 65 cap, not everyone was able to survie that so it wasn't an option. If you kill Issaac first, ardmond gets stronger and could possibly kill your tank so that might not be an option. One method to complete the fight was to dps both at the same time and try to kill them close together, minimizing the "Rage" durations....

Again, sound like a broken record, being ABLE to burn something doesn't mean it has to be. You CAN complete instances without k/w's, without an army of r/m's, you just need to be willing to learn and do the strats. Players don't want to, so the game becomes boring.

In one sense, this thread is lobbying for players to bring mages, and scouts, and warriors and warlocks and w/e else to runs. You might not be able to burn the boss, but you can complete instances and boss fights with support classes.

@ Lemon, my definition of Burn must not match yours? Burning bosses means killing them in 30s or less. Usually much shorter. This prevents any need for strats.

Don't confuse "not burning" a boss with "taking 20 minutes to kill it". These are NOT the same. Some people say 1st boss bethomia is burn or die because 2 adds spawn after 30 seconds. If you do the strat, and take 4minutes to kill the boss, everyhting is fine and dandy. That's what I'm saying. Burn = 30s or faster kills, which you don't need to do.

Yes you need to kill before the rage timers, yes rage timers are different between diferent bosses. Successsfully doing a strat to kill a boss means it takes a few minutes to kill, you executs game mechanics, but have enough dps to kill before the Rage timer. You don't need enough dps to do 120m in 15s, you need enough dps to do 120m in 180 seconds. Quite a difference.

And for the record, I still do sardo castle. I used to duo it and it was a lot of fun. And the comments about tosh and what not are exactly why I made this thread. Players can't burn tosh so they don't do it -- that's not Rom's fault. RW came up with bosses that force you to work together, to execute game mechanics, things that some players are asking for now, and have asked for in the past. If you don't enjoy doing those fights, then you don't really care for this thread at all -- if you like burning, then you aren't one of the complainers this thread is geared toward.

I'd be more then welcome for new such bosses Darwec. Soungs like a fantastic idea.

There are bosses currently that already do that. Aside form the ones you mentioned there's the boss in Atilus's tomb or w/e. Players solo it over long periods of time on a mage, but you could try taking a group and doing strat. Same for the boss in MT -- mind you the rewards for these bosses makes doing them for anything other then entertainment pointless, but yeah. Having more would be awesome.

Would new bosses that force you to do strat get mages or scouts to become more pupular? Probably not, but who knows. I was hoping I could convince people to discard the "we can, and therefore we will, kill everything in 15s" mentality so that new, funky things go on and players no longer scoff at Cike's s/d or any other fun and/or benificial classes that extend beyond what's measurable in scrutinizer.

If players choose not to burn bosses, and take players on runs because they do low damage but execute strats perfectly, wouldn't rom become more fun? Wouldn't the bar be lowered on gear requirements and ppl have to spend less money to have fun in instances? Wouldn't new players become "useful" sooner?

I've played games where 50 ppl on a boss still takes 10min and those are really fun. No burning, no competition, everyone gets a chance at the rewards. Strong or weak, everyone was able to help take the boss down and that would make small and larger servers alike more active wouldn't it? Take your most OP r/m and have him/her doing strats and dying along side weaker players, not "carrying them" b/c the bosses aren't being burned.

If it takes new bosses to do that, I'll be all for it. But I'd like to hear of some ppl taking thins slow, then there would be fewer complaints that rom is boring and we might have more players sticking around.