Developer Diary Feedback: Revisiting the Mines of Moria (First Half)

[Chanah]

Nor does 'tedious' in any way equate to 'difficult'.

You gotta know something's wrong when you always get to the Waterworks by jumping down the well in the Crossroads or when you're doing one of those multi-part epic quests and the third or fourth part sends you way out to the Second Hall, and you realise it's going to be 45 minutes quicker to commit suicide and respawn at the Crossroads rather than try to fight your way back. That's just bad design.

[bastardoGrande]

No. Thats just bad gameplay by you. If you dont want to fight mobs play an other game perhaps. Moria was a very well done dungoen. Now its just a nother faceroll zone.

[arnorman]

I was almost done with Chamber of Crossroads when the change happened. Durin’s Way seems really tame now, kind of boring. I think if they needed to make that area easier to get around in, they succeeded. However, they should have balanced it better by putting monsters in the corners waiting for our heroes. I mean sure, traveling along a well lit main road from here to there is nice if it’s easy, but once you go beyond that into the dark corners of Durin’s Way, be prepared for some skirmishing. There is none of that now, kind of boring.
It was kind of weird for that group of dwarves to decide to camp out in The Fanged Pit, not my first choice for a camp site, but now there’s hardly any enemies in there. That place has kind of lost its teeth too.
The new Water Works is great. I like the stable at Vile Maw, you can ride from one side of the zone to the other, and the goat looks great galloping over water. I like the new interior quest zone too.

[Chanah]

No. Thats just bad gameplay by you. If you dont want to fight mobs play an other game perhaps. Moria was a very well done dungoen. Now its just a nother faceroll zone.

But unlike you, I do not have eight to ten hours per day to play - I have that much time in a week to play if I'm lucky.

It has nothing to do with bad gameplay, unless, of course, all you consider good is an FPS with a maze to navigate.

[Nakiami]

Run through the mobs if you don't want to spend forever fighting them. Presumably, you have a rep goat, which affords you speed and some time before being dismounted and is usually all you need. Your class probably has other tools to deal with running off mobs, like speed increasers, heals usable on the move, bubbles, or HiPS.

[bambubambubambu]

Seemed like a good place to ask this question...

I skimmed the other other posts and didn't see it but I could be wrong. Anyway, I was wondering if the levels on the bartered Iron Garrison gear might be lowered a bit considering it's now possible to start in a bit sooner? I didn't see anything on the dev diary either but I could have missed that as well!

[Mar-Evayave]

I dunno if there is a thread for bugs, but I couldn't find one. Anyway, I like the revamps, but noticed a few errors. This is actually the second error but didn't think to get a screenshot when I encountered the first error. Anyway, here it is below. Basically the quest says to talk to Rambi when actually we are supposed to talk to his friend Sigdan. A minor error and one that is easily overlooked since the quest log tells who to really look for, but it can be confusing.



A larger image of my whole screen (instead of just the quest log) is HERE if you want to see what the minimap (for the quest ring guide) and the quest focus list show at the time. For reference sake, Sigdan is one of the two quest rings up the stairs near the task board. Rambi is located by the mailbox.

[Elinnea]

I dunno if there is a thread for bugs, but I couldn't find one. Anyway, I like the revamps, but noticed a few errors. This is actually the second error but didn't think to get a screenshot when I encountered the first error. Anyway, here it is below. Basically the quest says to talk to Rambi when actually we are supposed to talk to his friend Sigdan. A minor error and one that is easily overlooked since the quest log tells who to really look for, but it can be confusing.

I've been /bugging several quests like this. It seems a few items in quest logs and such got left behind from before the revamp. The patch notes this week claimed that they adjusted the names of some reward items to match who gives them out now, which was a similar issue, so it's worth submitting a bug in-game when you come across a naming mis-match.

[Mar-Evayave]

Okay, thanks for the suggestion! If I spot any more glitches I'll take a screenshot for reference sake and /bug it.

[Mightytree]

Revamps are good. There are basically two types of gamers: casual and hard core (hard core gamers
do not sleep or eat: they grind.) There has never really been a middle ground
suitable to both play styles until the relatively recent inclusion of the quest
hub to LOTRO. A lot of LOTRO content in SoA was designed to add a time element
so that leveling would be slower to give the devs time to implement end game &
Evendim: this is an outdated philosophy for a seasoned MMO like LOTRO. MoM was
designed like a Chinese fire drill and a revamp is well overdue. Quest hubs do
not diminish the immersion, a casual player will still be immersed in the story at their own pace and that is
the central charm of LOTRO.

When a MMO gets to the point where they are adding levels, new and old players
want to get to the top in a reasonable amount of time and a senseless random
grind does not help. The revamp as presented in the diary looks solid. Quest
hubs = victory.