I Finally Decided to Try LOTRO

[King Crispy]

Generally, especially if you have a decent system, it's like walking around on butter.

Awkward, messy and potentially hazardous?

I admit I posted this earlier on, when the lagginess of Bree and other more populated areas hadn't quite hit me yet. So premature comment was premature, yes.

 

[Rivmusique]

Holy shit, Captain. That's possibly the most boring class in the game. Or in any game I played perchance, even. Gawd. Maybe it's better at max but I got to 40 and it just WAS SO BORING.

Really? I played a Hunter and a Champion before I started the captain and it was by far my favourite. In dungeons* you had to melee through a chain to reach your healing "shout" (I think it was something like this), or you could debuff or do a high damage attack as a finisher if no one needed topping up. Sure, Minstrels were certainly preferred, but they weren't that common at the beginning so you could get groups. The only thing I did not like was receiving my Herald (I do not really like pet classes and having a human pet is even weirder).

*I say dungeons, but I really only played the barrow downs one, I did not get high enough to try anything else so perhaps they became completely useless.

 

[made]

min-maxing

Yeah, about that. How do you min-max in a game that has no raid analysis tools of any kind? They only recently started to support basic addons, and there's still no group-wide damage meter.

Consequently, players' understanding of what classes can or can't do in that game always seemed sketchy me. Like the notion that champs can't tank, while I could slap a shield on my champ and tank everything in a pinch, including DG, within a month of buying the expansion.

 

[Angthoron]

min-maxing

Yeah, about that. How do you min-max in a game that has no raid analysis tools of any kind? They only recently started to support basic addons, and there's still no group-wide damage meter.

Consequently, players' understanding of what classes can or can't do in that game always seemed sketchy me. Like the notion that champs can't tank, while I could slap a shield on my champ and tank everything in a pinch, including DG, within a month of buying the expansion.

We had a champ that kept asking "Is this good for champs?" at every item drop that had at least one stat that champions could use. Like Jewelled Bell. Our tanks raged at that question then.

There were some ways to measure performance but they were of course all iffy, and parser only worked so much that I tried it twice and never bothered again. In Moria, however, it became easier to min-max as LIs had fairly specific bonus lines like "Blades Line +X % Damage, Gold Tier" or "Fervor +X% Damage/ Fury Regeneration", Gold Tier". At the start of the expansion that was the thing to get, more or less, and lulz as I got the pocket item fairly quick, but then it took me what, 3 months of raiding and never in that time did the thing drop - ended up buying an "epic" version at AH for a ton of cash only to have it rendered largely pointless just a few weeks later. Thar went the min-maxing.

Rivmusique

Well that was my feeling with the Captain at least, but many did like it, and hey - Captains are actually REALLY useful in endgame with dread-removal and combat res (IIRC they had it) plus a way to initiate a FM.

 

[fuzz]

Generally, especially if you have a decent system, it's like walking around on butter.

Awkward, messy and potentially hazardous?

I admit I posted this earlier on, when the lagginess of Bree and other more populated areas hadn't quite hit me yet. So premature comment was premature, yes.

While you are there, check for some interesting places.
http://www.tentonhammer.com/lotro/guides/misc/gems

 

[King Crispy]

Very cool. I'll check those out.

 

[Lucas Halton]

So they finally fixed the clusterfuck they caused in Moria when Champs got nerfed to the point of being near-useless?

Ha? In Moria tanks were near useless as most of the dungeons/raids were dps races and Champs were top single target dps, top aoe dps and survivable enough that you never really needed a "proper" tank, every instance in Moria was easily tankable by a Champion without even switching to Glory, purely in Fervor. After Moria they were made somewhat squishier with Fervor healing nerfs, but in Moria Champions were by far the most op class.

 

[Angthoron]

So they finally fixed the clusterfuck they caused in Moria when Champs got nerfed to the point of being near-useless?

Ha? In Moria tanks were near useless as most of the dungeons/raids were dps races

Encounter design flaw.

and Champs were top single target dps, top aoe dps

Design flaw - why weren't other classed brought in-line? It's not that champion was overtuned, champion mechanics stayed ABSOLUTELY fucking same with the same scaling, it's that other classes got fucked at launch. Why? Scaling issues. Proper fix: rebalance all classes to scale to new levels. Improper fix: Nerf a class. By the way, you forgot to bring up aggro generation problems for Guardian and Warden, both of which were cited as reasons for Champion survivability nerfs. Question: How hard is it to re-tune aggro mechanics? Apparently, very hard. If that is indeed the case, this again shows problems in design of the engine. Or stupidity. Also, we never had aggro issues because hey! Aggro management!

and survivable enough that you never really needed a "proper" tank, every instance in Moria was easily tankable by a Champion without even switching to Glory, purely in Fervor.

Encounter design flaw. Champions couldn't tank BG and other similar instances in Vanilla even in T2 sets from what I saw, or at least not for very long, and not DWing in Fervor. Btw, Moria encounters in non-raids were fucked up in so many ways and for so long that it'd take a wall of text to describe it. Exploits, aggro bugs, resets and more exploits. I'm not even sure all of those got fixed, not to mention that some that got fixed just introduced more bugs. Again, my point is - it wasn't the Champ class that was broken, it was the whole fucking game at that point. The right way was to fix their shit wholesale, not do a quick balance check.

After Moria they were made somewhat squishier with Fervor healing nerfs, but in Moria Champions were by far the most op class.

During. Nerf happened mid-Moria, they hadn't even released the first actual raid by that time yet. Oh, and how about LIs being scrapped because of LI rebalancing for Champion items?

By the way, I take it you played a Champion in a raiding guild?

Oh yeah, and bear in mind that at least in EU, right about Moria time, the support teams were switched and replaced by morons that would make WoW early support teams look like total pros.

 

[King Crispy]

I know I'm the one who started this thread, but guys like you who take MMO's so ultra-seriously always crack me up.

 

[Angthoron]

I know I'm the one who started this thread, but guys like you who take MMO's so ultra-seriously always crack me up.

Oh, I actually didn't. It was a good time to quit LotRO and switch back to WoW at that point, content was bland, bugs were plentiful, and as I said, design issues just kept piling up, not to mention the raid team I was with started getting a serious case of limp-dick, so...

I do know a bunch of butthurt Guardians though, who were like "Wahh, we're not needed, why are you complaining champs, at least now you get to feel what we feel, bwaa" though, they were kinda fun to listen to. What did annoy me is that they (Turbine) fucked up a very nice game, and I did give a fair bit of thought to how it was that they did.

 

[pocahaunted]

I played a minstrel... pretty sure that class is way duller than the Captain.

Honestly, the game had some interesting aspects such as the lore, and environs in general, great dungeons and it thrived on group play. Still, it was quite flawed, the combat tended to feel clunky which is kind of a deal breaker.

 

[Lucas Halton]

So they finally fixed the clusterfuck they caused in Moria when Champs got nerfed to the point of being near-useless?

Ha? In Moria tanks were near useless as most of the dungeons/raids were dps races

Encounter design flaw.

and Champs were top single target dps, top aoe dps

Design flaw - why weren't other classed brought in-line? It's not that champion was overtuned, champion mechanics stayed ABSOLUTELY fucking same with the same scaling, it's that other classes got fucked at launch. Why? Scaling issues. Proper fix: rebalance all classes to scale to new levels. Improper fix: Nerf a class. By the way, you forgot to bring up aggro generation problems for Guardian and Warden, both of which were cited as reasons for Champion survivability nerfs. Question: How hard is it to re-tune aggro mechanics? Apparently, very hard. If that is indeed the case, this again shows problems in design of the engine. Or stupidity. Also, we never had aggro issues because hey! Aggro management!

and survivable enough that you never really needed a "proper" tank, every instance in Moria was easily tankable by a Champion without even switching to Glory, purely in Fervor.

Encounter design flaw. Champions couldn't tank BG and other similar instances in Vanilla even in T2 sets from what I saw, or at least not for very long, and not DWing in Fervor. Btw, Moria encounters in non-raids were fucked up in so many ways and for so long that it'd take a wall of text to describe it. Exploits, aggro bugs, resets and more exploits. I'm not even sure all of those got fixed, not to mention that some that got fixed just introduced more bugs. Again, my point is - it wasn't the Champ class that was broken, it was the whole fucking game at that point. The right way was to fix their shit wholesale, not do a quick balance check.

After Moria they were made somewhat squishier with Fervor healing nerfs, but in Moria Champions were by far the most op class.

During. Nerf happened mid-Moria, they hadn't even released the first actual raid by that time yet. Oh, and how about LIs being scrapped because of LI rebalancing for Champion items?

By the way, I take it you played a Champion in a raiding guild?

Oh yeah, and bear in mind that at least in EU, right about Moria time, the support teams were switched and replaced by morons that would make WoW early support teams look like total pros.

Actuallly, I played a Minstrel (plus a Hunter and a Warden) in a semicasual guild that never got Watcher and barely cleared first bosses in DN (although I cleared both with other people). First of champion "nerfs" happened with last content patch fo Moria, that was the infamous -30% healing in fervor which changed nothing really. On the day of that patch I went through all of those new 3 man instances with 2 Chimps and they barely had to switch one of them to Glory and that was only because we had no idea how things worked by the end of the week, we were easily clearing that 6 man instance with Chimps tanking, without ever changing out of Fervor (in fact I threatened them that if they ever switch out of Fervor, I won't heal them at all, just because of all doom and gloom about it ). Nothing really changed, and you can certainly say that that was because healing was overpowered. Encounters were wrong. Other classes were wrong. Yeah, right, the whole game was wrong, only the Champions were right

The fact is that Champions were top of the pack all the way through Moria, and that changed only in Mirkwood with more substantial changes in combat mechanics that made Champion tanking not really viable (at least without shield and Glory). And even at that point they were still the best DPS class, far above Hunters and somewhat better than Runekeepers. And still had the ability to switch to Glory and take the shield if shit hit the fan, unlike hunters who had no secondary role at all and were stilll inferior DPS to both (due to having to use Precision to keep threat down in groups).

Lots of things were wrong about the game at that time (and even more wrong later). I stopped playing soon too, but Champions were not really week at any point in that period and certainly not during Moria. At least not out of PvP where they were as weak as all the other melee classes

 

[Angthoron]

Actuallly, I played a Minstrel (plus a Hunter and a Warden)

Ah, I see.

in a semicasual guild that never got Watcher and barely cleared first bosses in DN (although I cleared both with other people).

Okay, and I was in the raid group that was in first three Watcher kills of the server. My perspective is slightly different.

First of champion "nerfs" happened with last content patch fo Moria, that was the infamous -30% healing in fervor which changed nothing really.

It changed one thing - showed me that the devs have no fucking clue about what to do with the mechanics. Yes, Champion incoming healing nerf was pointless, because largely it would affect idiots that would actually get hit. Of course, it also affected the tactics on the Watcher, since a Champion will take more damage there, which again made the whole thing stupid because that's unavoidable damage and suddenly the healer has to pay for it.

Nothing really changed, and you can certainly say that that was because healing was overpowered.

Why not nerf the healing then? Surely that'd have solved the issues of fucked up encounters.

Encounters were wrong.

That's right. DPS races are not a basis for a solid encounter. Bugged/exploitable encounters aren't a basis for a solid encounter.

Other classes were wrong.

That's right. Turbine employees stated several times that there were scaling issues with things like aggro and DPS of other classes.

Yeah, right, the whole game was wrong, only the Champions were right

Correct again! Moria came out with too much haste, many things were unpolished, and almost just as many things were left unpolished throughout the expansion. LI problems, ability scaling, encounter bugs/exploits/design flaws, then addition of daily grinds. Not an issue for casual players but for raiding that was really fucking annoying.

The fact is that Champions were top of the pack all the way through Moria, and that changed only in Mirkwood with more substantial changes in combat mechanics that made Champion tanking not really viable (at least without shield and Glory).

This is the key to understanding my issue with the Moria champion changes. That was what was required, not some make-shift patching.

And even at that point they were still the best DPS class, far above Hunters and somewhat better than Runekeepers. And still had the ability to switch to Glory and take the shield if shit hit the fan, unlike hunters who had no secondary role at all and were stilll inferior DPS to both (due to having to use Precision to keep threat down in groups).

Fact: This is same in other MMOs, melee DPS is intentionally higher than ranged, because ranged can shoot on the run while melee can't. In the end, mobility and damage balance each others out. If the fights favor one type over another, then it's designers' fuck-up. Case in point: WoW T11 bosses favoring ranged to the point that the first normal/heroic kills in the kill races were made without a single melee DPS. Total design fuck-up. LotRO had it the other way around a lot of times. IMO the best designed thing in LotRO was the Rift, it had perfect balance between things a ranged could do and between things a melee could do.

Lots of things were wrong about the game at that time (and even more wrong later). I stopped playing soon too, but Champions were not really week at any point in that period and certainly not during Moria. At least not out of PvP where they were as weak as all the other melee classes

In regular content, yes. In raiding, no. The champion nerf brought a viability to the mix, and if the healers weren't up to scratch (and we sadly had some of those), then too bad that you managed your aggro and never drew attention of a boss, that inescapeable AoE and that DOT killed you anyway, or drained the minstrel too much to keep the tank alive. In other words: For raiding champions, that was showing the finger. Cuz raiding is SRS BSNS.

And yeah, as I said, the nerf just showed me that they had no intentions of fixing other major issues so I just gave up and moved on.

 

[Brayko]

Best MMO I've played, until I realized that social gaming just isn't for me. This was the MMO that sucked my life away for a month, not WoW.

 

[fengzi597]

I played it long time ago. I miss this game and might replay it again if i have more spare time.

 

[lmbarns]

My gf wanted to try a video game for the first time, and had this hardon for LOTR so we gave it a shot. I rolled a couple characters and played through to get out of the starting zones by doing all the quests, then tried to travel as far around as I could, but was a bit saddened to see that as I leveled into my 20's, no matter where I went I just saw the same bears and wolves, but with different color names....the gameplay was fun, blasting fools with my guitar and doing combos that built off each other was really good....great gameplay. Crafting didn't seem as intuitive as say Ultima Online but I guess that's a high standard.

Only MMO's I've ever subscribed to more than a trial was UO, then a couple years ago Darkfall Online, but yea it died too.

 

[Drakron]

Odd ... I seen Snapper Turtles in Bree-lands as well as Neeker-breekers that are hardly bears or wolves, not to say the Warped Oaks in the Old Forest and all the undead in the Barrens.

I could say I am surprised they managed to put some new creatures as being a IP based game they dont really have much room to go with that, most will be things referenced by Tolkien as there is really no way around that (as its licensed IP).

 

[Angthoron]

Odd ... I seen Snapper Turtles in Bree-lands as well as Neeker-breekers that are hardly bears or wolves, not to say the Warped Oaks in the Old Forest and all the undead in the Barrens.

I could say I am surprised they managed to put some new creatures as being a IP based game they dont really have much room to go with that, most will be things referenced by Tolkien as there is really no way around that (as its licensed IP).

Not to forget the named elite Warg that prematurely ended the Immortal achievement run for many a player just a little outside Bree-Town.

Yeah, LotRO was heavily constrained by the IP. They avoided some of it with the Deep Ones in Moria and Rift though, as well as Corrupt creatures. Was kinda cool, that.

 

[Drakron]

I managed to get that ... at my 5th time, the cause of most of those deaths was going into Kheledûll and I nearly got killed with the character I got the title in Rath Teraigas trying to get the Exploration deed and having to deal with Elite lv 11 Goblins.

Then a few levels after lv 20 I got in Great Burrow in a fellowship and we all got killed, also we can die from falls as I noticed when I tried to shortcut from Weathertop by jumping down.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

I'm installing it again. I remember quitting it last time because I got stuck on some quests but I think I'll skip them and move on to the next area, see if it's any better. I can't remember what server I'm on, but I know it's EU.

 

[Drakron]

Well the Launcher allows you to pick server, I am on Crickhollow since it was on the top of the list and I just "meh, does not matter if its this way" but some "worlds" seem to have a RP sufix, I suspect those are the roleplaying enforcing servers.

 

[Angthoron]

Well the Launcher allows you to pick server, I am on Crickhollow since it was on the top of the list and I just "meh, does not matter if its this way" but some "worlds" seem to have a RP sufix, I suspect those are the roleplaying enforcing servers.

There's no way to enforce roleplaying in WoW-likes really, except names and clear griefing (and that'd have to be monumental), anyway.

But there are people doing a "/me munches on chicken wing", yeah.

 

[laclongquan]

My gf wanted to try a video game for the first time, and had this hardon for LOTR so we gave it a shot...

Codexers can always surprise you.

 

[RK47]

My gf wanted to try a video game for the first time, and had this hardon for LOTR so we gave it a shot...

Codexers can always surprise you.

 

[Drakron]

There's no way to enforce roleplaying in WoW-likes really, except names and clear griefing (and that'd have to be monumental), anyway.

Well you cannot and should not be doing anything to enforce roleplaying beyond naming and chat monitoring since its not really their business to tell others how to roleplay, silly non-Middle Earth names and going way off topic in regional chat is enough, trying to force people into roleplaying into rather specific roles is simply that, forcing people into a role.

Its a notorious bad habit of roleplayers to tell how one should roleplay their characters and yes, one can be rather bad at it by pushing all the cliche in their roleplaying but still, trying to be so specific will just turn the server into the personal sever of a few people that want for it to be played in such a way.