Current Raid content a little stale.

[XSYS]

After the treatment Annuminas and Helegrod got, do any of us care about how they butcher the rift? I mean, they could have just given us an empty instance with loot at the end and it'd be about the same.

Helegrod I understand, but Annuminas? I think the final boss fights are at least on par with SG, which was considered a reasonably challenging instance before everyone ran it into the ground. Library is cake. School is cake. Sambrog is cake. Helegrod is cake. But Annuminas HMs and Maze/Thadur bosses are only cake for good groups, and that seems reasonable to me. Yes, I'd love one or two really, really hard instances, and I wish the loot in the instances we have was skewed to make Annuminas Tombs as attractive as Library, but I don't think they were too easy on instance difficulty in most of the 6-mans. If you just want something to bash your head against, I'd recommend 6-manning BG.

The impending Rift redesign worries me, but I'm more worried that it won't be worth running or that it will be more efficient to run at level 50 than that it will be too easy at 65. It's easy for players to generate their own challenge; generating reward is the problem. And with the trend toward everyone-gets-the-same-loot, Turbine is nullifying the one tangible benefit of generating challenge by undermanning content.

[Spacmanbobr]

My kinship and I haven't run BG in the past 2 months, and really I have been playing maybe 3 hours a week now, already canceled my subscription since all you really get is PvMP and repeatable quests. Helegrod and Annu and whatnot are fun sortave, but that's pretty much all over now too. The game is really stale as a whole... I think we need new raids/instances and then something that should've happened with Moria... PvMP love.

That said, the festival was fun for like a day...

Also loot is a big deal... I'd easily go back and start running BG a ton if epic loot was thrown in, even after a year since it came out... to this day it's still fun and challenging, and few groups can down it all.

[LagunaD]

JA, I don't think you give the bean-counters at Turbine enough credit. If they thought there was big money to made by pumping out quality end-game content, or more to the point, if they thought there was big money to be lost by continuing the minimalist effort they have gotten away with for the last couple years, you would see "Raid Packs! - Buy Now!" when you opened the Turbine Store, instead of cosmetics and stat tomes.

I think they have researched their target customer base with exquisite care, and we ain't it. It seems to me they have determined that merely the illusion of a thriving end-game is all they need to create, since they will make most of their money off two groups: 1) Casual subscribers who reach the end-game and hang around for festivals/horses/books, and buy fluff and stat tomes from the store, and 2) New players who get suckered in by the "Free-to-Play" baloney, spend some money, and eventually quit or join category #1. The beauty of this model is that it requires a very low level of investment, since most of the money is made by selling stuff they have already made, or which takes essentially zero labor (much easier to whip up a set of +60 stat tomes than to design a new instance cluster...) and letting the value of the IP do the rest.

There is something of an upside, if you want to call it that, since there is really not much reason for end-game players to continue to subscribe. People who realize that will have access to whatever little end-game content they do provide (once a year, if that, by the looks of it) basically for free.

[RicardoFurriel]

I believe the truly realization one must realize is the fact that if you're looking for level cap/end-game/more-than-casual-grouping/hardcore raiding type of content, LOTRO is not the game for you.

Now more than ever the focus is on a) new players and b) casual players. If you do not fit into one of the above categories you have two options: move on to another game which offers what you're looking for or suck it up.

I'm on that last choice there... I don't have the time to start in another MMO. Second, I started playing because the theme was LOTR, not because was an MMO. And although I'm not happy with the fact that i can't feed the raiding and the hardcore in me, I know that at this point I'm the minority and I have to live with it and try to enjoy the game the way it's presented to me atm...

In the past few months, my kinship like many others saw a drastic decline on participation and that's really sad. After so much time invested you see everything crumbling... And that's what upsets me the most... Turbine created a product which appealed to mostly everyone (raiders, roll players, casuals, soloers, groupers,...) and at the moment the groupers (let's define them as ppl who log on and do a 6 man here and there and a couple of 3 mans per week) and raiders have no incentive to log in the game in my opinion. And with nothing in sight until *maybe March* what am I suppose to do? Level/Grind yet another LI? Level yet another alt?

Don't come here and tell me that the revamp instances are new content. As fun as the festivals are, that joy doesn't last long enough to feed players appetite for more than a week... Like others have said, loot in BG was criticized since day 1 (December 2009 live, a few months before during Beta, so... 1 year ago...) and nothing changed... So much for listening to the players...

Does anyone remember when having Wig-Feld was the best accomplishment in the game? Or having the title Reclaimer of Mirdanant? What do we have now? Times are so different... There's so little to look forward to...

PS: No, the sky is not falling. But I miss LOTRO I was used to play...

[gildhur]

Does anyone remember when having Wig-Feld was the best accomplishment in the game? Or having the title Reclaimer of Mirdanant? What do we have now? Times are so different... There's so little to look forward to...

Bane of the Lieutenant? Malledhrim War-horse? Unwelcome Mat? Those kind of things still exist.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Bane of the Lieutenant? Malledhrim War-horse? Unwelcome Mat? Those kind of things still exist.

IMHO - These are not desired by a portion of the customer base. I have a friend that is like this. My daughter who plays online game is also this way.

They only want to do content that improves the combat capability of their character.

Bane of the Lieutenant - Does that add +1 Might - No --> Not doing it. Do not want it.
Malledhrim War-horse - Can I ram someone this this horse? You not serious are you? It is a different skin - really... No --> Not doing it.

Unwelcome Mat - Can I go home get a one hour buff? - +5 Hope - No --> Not doing it.

IMHO - Turbine has a group of customers that want long complicated difficult instances that require a lot of characters. These instances give out equipment upgrades can not get anywhere else. The problem:

1) It is a lot of resources to build something big, long, complicated, challenging for a large group.

2) There is not a lot of demand for this kind of content. It is lot of investment to reach a small number of total customers. Turbine does not get a lot of dollars back for all this effort.

3) Turbine does not want to seriously unbalance the equipment available for characters any particular level via the different play styles. They got a cap on what you can get. There is a limited range between crafted, quest gear and the other easy to get stuff - and the cap to build in difficult instance rewards.

Turbine does not want to get into this kind hamster situation - Cap your character - get the best quest and crafted gear - run instance cluster 1 - get the gear to power up your character to do instance cluster 2 - get this gear to power up your character to do instance cluster 3.

You want real growth in equipment. The level cap got to go up. Which will then raise the equipment cap. Obsolete our current equipment.

I suspect the only change we will see prior to the level cap raise. Is more sideways like the Helegrod sets. The introduction of level 65, first age items. Maybe a point here or there thrown in for grins and giggles.

We have not gotten anything because Turbine put all development on hold in January 2010 for the free to play update which is for the level 1 characters and above. The truly new customers. Not for those of us like me that have level capped characters.

[Rawlor]

what's most baffling is they had a near perfect raiding formula in place with the rift and the watcher -- an excellent combination of challenge, rare and highly desirable loot, and a clear sense of progression. then, they just went away from it. utterly mystifying.

This is right on. And the fact is, there are still items in the Rift and the Watcher that people want.

Does anyone remember when having Wig-Feld was the best accomplishment in the game? Or having the title Reclaimer of Mirdanant? What do we have now? Times are so different... There's so little to look forward to...

Bane of the Lieutenant? Malledhrim War-horse? Unwelcome Mat? Those kind of things still exist.

Point taken, but I think they are different. Back in SoA, people actually cared about running The Rift and Helegrod. They were awesome. Now, you have people running BG just because it is the only other thing to do in the game at max level.
Not only that but items like wig-field were usable. If you had that cloak you would wear it because it was amazing.
As someone who runs BG weekly, the only goal I have left is LT HM and my last piece of armor for cosmetic reasons (sooooo close on LT too). After that I'll run it for my group, because they are awesome and deserve to have something to show for months of time and effort. After that... well hopefully we'll stop running it. Runs are so "Blah" now.
I asked my group how they wanted to go about doing loot for the unwelcome mat if it dropped. No one really cared.

[RicardoFurriel]

Bane of the Lieutenant? Malledhrim War-horse? Unwelcome Mat? Those kind of things still exist.

They do exist. Problem 1) you need 11 other players for a shot at it. Problem 2) those 11 players have to have your motivation level. Problem 3) Motivation levels are kept up by achieving something and being rewarded for it (doesn't happen in BG). Problem 4) not only there are little to no rewards, raid is annoying with time consuming mobs (lights, bugged pulls, gauntlet before fix, etc). Problem 5) After a year, all these things pile up and ppl can't be blamed for leaving...

During the SoA or MoM, there was motivation, there was a very desirable drop somewhere, there was a rare title, a rare cosmetic, a rare deed.

I know Turbine is your best friend and they are God to your eyes. Fact is, my kin was one of the most active kins in Lotro for the past 2 years and now we don't have 3 ppl on at the same time ever. Is all my fault or the players fault? Are we just a bunch of elitist, dirt bag and PITA players? Most of us used to love Lotro and now ppl seem not to bother. Is it all our fault? Really Gildhur?

[jhwort]

I know Turbine is your best friend and they are God to your eyes. Fact is, my kin was one of the most active kins in Lotro for the past 2 years and now we don't have 3 ppl on at the same time ever. Is all my fault or the players fault? Are we just a bunch of elitist, dirt bag and PITA players? Most of us used to love Lotro and now ppl seem not to bother. Is it all our fault? Really Gildhur?

It's our fault that we're standing in the way of Turbine's new business model.

On a related note. In the LT HM chest this week we received the Vile of Ooze or whatever it's called. Now, there are a few decent upgrades (or at least side-grades) on jewelry and off-hand weapons that come out of BG, but putting junk loot like this in any raid, let alone the current end game raid, is ridiculous. I also recall a spear dropping? Spears are only usable as a main hand. *sigh*

[LagunaD]

but, it seems to me that if this illusion exists, it extends to a number of turbine employees as well. certainly reading Amlug's posts would lead one to believe he thinks raiding is not only thriving but also providing the awesome rewards he claims it should be. i honestly believe there is (at least) a subset of turbine employees that sincerely believes they are providing -- or trying to provide -- a thriving endgame. but they're not.

See, here is where again, I don't think you give them enough credit. They would have to be completely clueless to believe that, and I don't think they are. They may think they are doing the best they can, given the resources assigned to this aspect of the game by management/marketing.

and, the sad part is, such a minor change (like improving loot to complement the generally sound gameplay of a place like BG) could really get them there. it's not like they have to replicate the thousands of man-hours of effort already spent to build the raid in the first place....all they'd have to do is spend an hour reworking the loot. but, because of what i consider to be general incompetence and unwillingness to consider feedback -- primarily among the Systems Team responsible for itemization -- they fall drastically short. such a small amount of effort would lead to such a large improvement in player satisfaction, yet no action is taken.

That's because the real "awesome loot" is being sold in the store - most of it to people who will never set foot in a raid.

and i say above, it's not like they never had the right answer in times past. the rift and the watcher are great examples of how to succeed -- and how turbine DID succeed -- in the raiding realm. fairly simple formula: challenge + desirable loot. this led to high player engagement with those instances and certainly did not hurt the non-raiding rest of the game.

Obviously selling stat tomes, horses and cosmetics is better for the bottom line, though. They cost next to nothing to create, and bring in huge revenue. Why should they invest in something that gives them (maybe) a 5% return when they can invest in other things that give them a 10000% return? If you had a money-printing machine in your basement, would you still go to work 9-5 every day? Of course not.

but really, my bottom line is that gimmicks like the store are short-term bandaids at best. at some point, people will make a considered judgment of this game based on its merits, i.e. is turbine still releasing good, satisfying content? in terms of bringing in new/keeping existing raiders, the answer for the last two years has been a resounding no.

I guess this is really the crux of the question. In your view, the devs and management make senseless decisions and the player-base behaves rationally. In my view, it's the other way around - the direction of the game has been, is, and will continue to be, coldly calculated to generate maximum revenue based on the proven (and frequently irrational) preferences of the players. If they have changed the direction of the game since launch, it is surely because, with experience and careful marketing studies since then, they've figured out how to attract more monies. That is what successful companies do.

Note that "irrational" is not meant in a perjorative sense, either. If most players prefer a game that gives them new horses and cosmetic dresses instead of challenging content and character advancement rewards, that is a preference for a particular form of entertainment. It doesn't appeal to me in the slightest, but it's a subjective matter of taste, not based on any rational considerations.

[jhwort]

If most players prefer a game that gives them new horses and cosmetic dresses instead of challenging content and character advancement rewards, that is a preference for a particular form of entertainment.

I prefer challenging content that gives us cosmetic dresses and emotes! Now we're talkin!

/spin
/spin
/spin
/spin
/drunk

[Finrandiras]

so, clearly they're trying to keep the raiding thing alive, if only on life support. they're not walking away -- they're already investing the resources; but they're wasting that investment by not structuring the last mile correctly. all they have to do is add a few tweaks on the loot/reward front and that investment which they've already made pays off. otherwise, they've just dumped a ton of man-hours into something for little to no purpose, and that seems the height of business inefficiency.

Completely agree there, they can spend months creating new raid, but if some of the features of it will be broken, it will go to waste.

Maybe you can check the thread in suggestion forum, I was bored after BG run and decided I need to write something about it....
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...36#post5047836

[laughterkillsme]

Helegrod I understand, but Annuminas? I think the final boss fights are at least on par with SG, which was considered a reasonably challenging instance before everyone ran it into the ground.

Annuminas may be on par with SG, but is not on par with what Annuminas was at L50 in SOA.

Library is cake. School is cake. Sambrog is cake. Helegrod is cake. But Annuminas HMs and Maze/Thadur bosses are only cake for good groups, and that seems reasonable to me. Yes, I'd love one or two really, really hard instances, and I wish the loot in the instances we have was skewed to make Annuminas Tombs as attractive as Library, but I don't think they were too easy on instance difficulty in most of the 6-mans. If you just want something to bash your head against, I'd recommend 6-manning BG.

They were too easy on instance difficulty in the 6-mans, relative to the difficulty of 6-mans in SOA.

The impending Rift redesign worries me, but I'm more worried that it won't be worth running or that it will be more efficient to run at level 50 than that it will be too easy at 65. It's easy for players to generate their own challenge; generating reward is the problem. And with the trend toward everyone-gets-the-same-loot, Turbine is nullifying the one tangible benefit of generating challenge by undermanning content.

First time I did scaled up drakes, we did it with 6 in hard mode. It didn't feel like an accomplishment because we barely had to play to do it. If the current scaled up instances are up to snuff challenge and reward wise (in the eyes of the devs), scaled up rift is going to be little more than another speed bump on the way to our next raid.

[Nostake]

My kinship and I haven't run BG in the past 2 months, and really I have been playing maybe 3 hours a week now, already canceled my subscription since all you really get is PvMP and repeatable quests. Helegrod and Annu and whatnot are fun sortave, but that's pretty much all over now too. The game is really stale as a whole... I think we need new raids/instances and then something that should've happened with Moria... PvMP love.

That said, the festival was fun for like a day...

Also loot is a big deal... I'd easily go back and start running BG a ton if epic loot was thrown in, even after a year since it came out... to this day it's still fun and challenging, and few groups can down it all.

ya if your looking forward to a new instance instead the next update includes a vault redo for our gaming pleasure

[Nostake]

JA, I don't think you give the bean-counters at Turbine enough credit. If they thought there was big money to made by pumping out quality end-game content, or more to the point, if they thought there was big money to be lost by continuing the minimalist effort they have gotten away with for the last couple years, you would see "Raid Packs! - Buy Now!" when you opened the Turbine Store, instead of cosmetics and stat tomes.

I think they have researched their target customer base with exquisite care, and we ain't it. It seems to me they have determined that merely the illusion of a thriving end-game is all they need to create, since they will make most of their money off two groups: 1) Casual subscribers who reach the end-game and hang around for festivals/horses/books, and buy fluff and stat tomes from the store, and 2) New players who get suckered in by the "Free-to-Play" baloney, spend some money, and eventually quit or join category #1. The beauty of this model is that it requires a very low level of investment, since most of the money is made by selling stuff they have already made, or which takes essentially zero labor (much easier to whip up a set of +60 stat tomes than to design a new instance cluster...) and letting the value of the IP do the rest.

There is something of an upside, if you want to call it that, since there is really not much reason for end-game players to continue to subscribe. People who realize that will have access to whatever little end-game content they do provide (once a year, if that, by the looks of it) basically for free.

yup that is the only plus we can now stop paying them, and only resub when they actually put effort into an instance

[Nostake]

I believe the truly realization one must realize is the fact that if you're looking for level cap/end-game/more-than-casual-grouping/hardcore raiding type of content, LOTRO is not the game for you.

Now more than ever the focus is on a) new players and b) casual players. If you do not fit into one of the above categories you have two options: move on to another game which offers what you're looking for or suck it up.

I'm on that last choice there... I don't have the time to start in another MMO. Second, I started playing because the theme was LOTR, not because was an MMO. And although I'm not happy with the fact that i can't feed the raiding and the hardcore in me, I know that at this point I'm the minority and I have to live with it and try to enjoy the game the way it's presented to me atm...

In the past few months, my kinship like many others saw a drastic decline on participation and that's really sad. After so much time invested you see everything crumbling... And that's what upsets me the most... Turbine created a product which appealed to mostly everyone (raiders, roll players, casuals, soloers, groupers,...) and at the moment the groupers (let's define them as ppl who log on and do a 6 man here and there and a couple of 3 mans per week) and raiders have no incentive to log in the game in my opinion. And with nothing in sight until *maybe March* what am I suppose to do? Level/Grind yet another LI? Level yet another alt?

Don't come here and tell me that the revamp instances are new content. As fun as the festivals are, that joy doesn't last long enough to feed players appetite for more than a week... Like others have said, loot in BG was criticized since day 1 (December 2009 live, a few months before during Beta, so... 1 year ago...) and nothing changed... So much for listening to the players...

Does anyone remember when having Wig-Feld was the best accomplishment in the game? Or having the title Reclaimer of Mirdanant? What do we have now? Times are so different... There's so little to look forward to...

PS: No, the sky is not falling. But I miss LOTRO I was used to play...

well said i beleive the poor loot was just getting us used to mediocre armour that we suplement with stat tomes or icpr tomes or morale tomes etc etc

[Nostake]

They do exist. Problem 1) you need 11 other players for a shot at it. Problem 2) those 11 players have to have your motivation level. Problem 3) Motivation levels are kept up by achieving something and being rewarded for it (doesn't happen in BG). Problem 4) not only there are little to no rewards, raid is annoying with time consuming mobs (lights, bugged pulls, gauntlet before fix, etc). Problem 5) After a year, all these things pile up and ppl can't be blamed for leaving...

During the SoA or MoM, there was motivation, there was a very desirable drop somewhere, there was a rare title, a rare cosmetic, a rare deed.

I know Turbine is your best friend and they are God to your eyes. Fact is, my kin was one of the most active kins in Lotro for the past 2 years and now we don't have 3 ppl on at the same time ever. Is all my fault or the players fault? Are we just a bunch of elitist, dirt bag and PITA players? Most of us used to love Lotro and now ppl seem not to bother. Is it all our fault? Really Gildhur?

he is not the only one here using whatever toothpick they can to represent a forest

[wyldcyde]

raid content is fine. i log on about twice each week, do one helegrod run then log off

hopefully ill never feel the need to spend another dime on lotro. 3-4years of solid gaming so it was well worth the $.

next raid will probably be classic rift.

[Southpa]

next raid will probably be classic rift.

Pretty sure "she" already said the update after Nov will have a new cluster w/12-man and it's not the Rift. Guess we'll see.

The good thing about them making it easier to level with each update (it seems) is that one of two things is inevitable:

1. They will have to cater mainly to the end-game
or
2. They will unplug the servers

F2P will not keep netting them the burst in subs/cash it did, so logic would dictate they will either need to cater mainly to end game or let the game die.

Another good thing is that almost all low zones have been revamped! Will we see the rounds of rerevamps next? Oh boy...

[LagunaD]

The good thing about them making it easier to level with each update (it seems) is that one of two things is inevitable:

1. They will have to cater mainly to the end-game
or
2. They will unplug the servers

F2P will not keep netting them the burst in subs/cash it did, so logic would dictate they will either need to cater mainly to end game or let the game die.

Not so sure about this. They have only tapped a small percentage of the potential base of:

1) People who like the books, plus
2) People who like the films, plus
3) People who play MMOs, plus
4) Friends of those people

Also, periodic updates, the occasional bigger expansion, and well-timed marketing campaigns will bring back people who got bored and left.

Sure F2P got them a big surge of new interest. But so will Book 3. So will the Isengard expansion (even if it turns out, like Enedwaith, to have only cosmetic/emote/horse rewards...). Etc.

Another good thing is that almost all low zones have been revamped! Will we see the rounds of rerevamps next? Oh boy...

Actually Ered Luin is a re-revamp. It was revamped once already for Moria Book 7. (Re)Revamping SoA is where it makes most sense for them to put their effort, given the business model, and lo and behold, that is where their effort seems to be going.

[Southpa]

Just saying, there's no way the game can get another surge in player base unless they start paying people to play it. First it's new, then it's free, then.....nothing left that makes good business sense. Sure, they doubled their revenue from F2P, but that won't last long. Maybe they milked an extra 50-100 bucks out of long-time players so they could buy their target market items in the Store - but that also won't last forever unless they want to break the game. Maybe they gained a bunch of new subs who fell in love with the game. That number will also drop precipitously in short time - without relevant content.

All the cosmetic items in the world aren't going to pacify most people if they have nothing to do whilst looking so damn fashionable. Rerevamping old areas is a gimmic they are stretching to the max, IMO. That also won't pacify most people.

Like I said, it's about 10x easier to level now than it was when I took my first toons through - and this was my first MMO, so I didn't have any sort of insight. Even the most casual player can blow a couple toons thru the starting areas to the point where that content is mostly irrelevant after a weekend or two.

They're milking it again because the time is ripe...and I'd wager it shall never be so ripe again.

[Valthirus]

In my opinion BG was the best raid ever made (minus the trash). Helegrod was a let down in terms of effort... along with all of the classic instances. It is literally a zero team work requirement to do the classic instances. Turbine needs to make a new (not classic) instance that has a tier system for difficulty. Tier 3 making the content LT HM difficulty, Tier 2 making it Durchest/Twins difficulty, and Tier 1 being Helegrod difficulty.

Just would like to add one thing. Bring on the Lair fights Turbine. Make a fun boss fight that has 3 tiers of difficulty.

A year of BG is too long,

Valthirus

[Nostake]

Not so sure about this. They have only tapped a small percentage of the potential base of:

1) People who like the books, plus
2) People who like the films, plus
3) People who play MMOs, plus
4) Friends of those people

Also, periodic updates, the occasional bigger expansion, and well-timed marketing campaigns will bring back people who got bored and left.

Sure F2P got them a big surge of new interest. But so will Book 3. So will the Isengard expansion (even if it turns out, like Enedwaith, to have only cosmetic/emote/horse rewards...). Etc.



Actually Ered Luin is a re-revamp. It was revamped once already for Moria Book 7. (Re)Revamping SoA is where it makes most sense for them to put their effort, given the business model, and lo and behold, that is where their effort seems to be going.

this is why the next raid cluster is their last shot at my money.....if it sucks *** and was rushed ill NEVER give turbine another red cent

[gakj3]

3-4years of solid gaming so it was well worth the $

agreed man 3 years of good fun esp shadows of angmar.

there isnt much going on anymore, especially for ppl that like to group and already played the **** out of the old soa instances (in soa lol), which is sad but oh well. it was definitely fun while it lasted

[Valthirus]

If Classic Rift is the next raid cluster then I will rage. Finding out a new instance strat>using a previous strat. We need a new raid/boss that is as hard as LT. Helegrod was a WASTE OF RESOURCES. Shouldn't be able to use a strat that you learned a few years ago and beat something on your first try.