[Tue Aug 26] Battlegrounding

[Raedwulf]

There are 3 Battleground quests, initiated from Gath Forthnir. They grant Marks that, with Vile Silver Coins, can be traded for jewellery or gift chests; and rep with the Council of the North. We've only tried one so far (Aughaire). Whilst we were successful on the second attempt (cos we're good! :Y ), these are hard, but also thoroughly fun (partly cos they are hard!). They will all require a full fellowship, judging by our first experience.

So, in the absence of raiding this week, we'll try dedicating Tuesday evening to BGDing (BGD, to distinguish from BG Barad Gularan). Come one, come all, & we'll try to make up what groups we can from whoever arrives. If there's 6 / 12 / 18 of us, marvellous! Otherwise, we'll try to split people as equally as we can between a number of groups & top-up with PUGs. NB: At least 6 alts are currently on cooldown for Aughaire, which may affect organisation.

[Rhyaehar]

Melagil will be there I think...

[Tiermond]

I can be there with whoever is needed but preferably Tiermond.

[bothorn]

im up for it, captain or hunter. ive done the aughair one on bothorn so i might stil be on CD for it but can handle the task of switching characters i think

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Sure, i'm in. Last one was fun and we got through by the skin of our teeth :)

[Aloisa]

I would like to join please! :)

[Baro]

So these BGD are not depending on me being done with Book 14?
If they are not then I'll come for sure :-)

[Derigar/Tarinas]

They don't depend on you having done the book, but in terms of the story they are set after the conclusion of book 14, so may provide spoilers.

[Notiane]

I'll be there, as Noti preferably, but can always switch to Eld

[Joerg]

I'm in as well, either as Captain or Hunter, depending on what is needed.

[Joerg]

Well the organsiation for this run was not as I expected it to be. Why?

If you split 12 people into 2 groups, cause first group has done the first instance already, please either put one experienced char into the second group or write up a guide. A simple "run where the message says" is not enough if none have successfully done this before. I'm very pissed right now, cause I thought that the reason we did such runs is that we all profit from the experience of others. Otherwise I would have tried the instances already, but I waited for you guys to help me/us through.

I hope this is not the new style of RaidsRUs and it will not happen again.

[Raedwulf]

First off, my apologies. Don't blame RRU, blame me - I posted the thread & I organised the groups. As to a guide, now that I've at least tried all 3 instances, I'll have a go. However, in my defence, I would like to point out a couple of things. But not right now, cos I've just had a bit of a funny turn at work & they're insisting I go to A&E to be checked over!

[Raedwulf]

“Well the organsiation for this run was not as I expected it to be. Why?” Because you had a completely different expectation, on signing up, to the one I had when I started the thread.

"I thought that the reason we did such runs is that we all profit from the experience of others" - a reasonable assumption, but actually the thought never crossed my mind when I created the thread. Battlegrounds are brand new & we had a gap in the calendar, so I posted this simply to give people an opportunity to get themselves together at a specific time, rather than randomly asking whether anyone fancies it or, gods forbid, having to resort to PUGs. It wasn’t until I was sorting the groups out that I realised we had an organisational problem. In the end, given that I was constrained by locks & was trying to respect social ties, I actually had virtually no choice over the composition.

The sum total of experience available to the whole of RRU last night, as far as I know, amounted to 7 alts / players who've done the Aughaire BGD once. Two weren’t present at all, three that were (Rhy, Tarinas, Bothorn) were locked on Aughaire. I was working on the presumption that Alwing & yourself would want to stay together. That then ruled out putting Noti in your group, since a Loremaster is pretty much essential for all BGDs. If Noti had switched to Eldi, I’d have had to switch to Ang (which would, incidentally, have deprived us of the only GDN), and that, in any case, wouldn’t have helped in the least since Eldi & Ang were the other 2 locked alts. If I split the locks up between the groups, neither could have gone into Aughaire, which would render your complaint redundant since we would all have had to do Rammas Deluon where no-one had any experience. Maybe that's what I should have done. {shrugs}

Neither BRG had any experience or locks, so I kept Tiermond in my group (kinship - social ties again). Dimple, despite being kin, had to go with you because Tari couldn’t (locked), & both Minstrels were Nimminas, Kuni having switched to Alwing. I accepted her offer to do so because, as noted above, switching to Ang would only have brought another lock in and would have deprived us of the only available GDN. The only choice that left me was which group I went into. I put Feandil in with you & Alwing, not least because I gathered from Rhyaehar that you three run around together quite a lot. Having done that, I had to be in group 1. I may be at fault for organising things partially along social / used-to-working-together lines, but at the time, it seemed a reasonable enough way of doing it.

It did cross my mind before setting off that I’d put all 5 available “experienced” people into Group 1. However, having done Aughaire, having now tried & enjoyed all 3 of the scenarios, whilst they are all difficult to complete, they’re also pretty simple from the tactical point-of-view. Added to that, my basic attitude is that I’d rather have a go at something new myself. I've never particularly liked being dragged through a fellowship-sized encounter that's new to me by someone that knows exactly where to go, what to do, etc. It takes a lot of the fun out of it. I know I’m not the only one in RRU with that attitude, so I figured you probably wouldn’t mind too much (plus I give you credit for being good enough to work out the scenario without difficulty! ;) ) that what you were getting was some quick advice, rather than one of the people that had been in before. Obviously, I was wrong about that, & I apologise again. So whilst I understand you feeling pissed off, equally, I hope you now understand there were good reasons (or, at least, what seemed like good reasons!) why I sorted the groups out the way I did. You’re a Raid Leader, mate, you know how it goes, sometimes you make decisions & they don’t come out quite right!

[Aloisa]

All the complex business aside (I just fire arrows ;) , I was very nice to get the first one done last night.

We did no see the Nemesis (I think he was afraid), but with the tight timing it did feel like a worked for victory.

There was some talk of another BGD visit tonight. I would not usually be online until a bit later this evening, but if anyone can drop a note here that they will be available and in need of a hunter, then I will do all I can to be in the right place at the right time! :Y

[Derigar/Tarinas]

The problem with the groups as Raed pointed out, is that pretty much anyone with experience still had locks blocking them from retaking the first instance, so groups were decided mostly around trying to balance classes while taking the locks into account. Sorry for anyone who felt they were hard done by, or left out, but it was just a bit of bad timing. Anyway, where would the group be without attempting something new with a 'Sod it, lets give a shot and see how long it takes us to die' mentality ;)