Yes, those that have posted here so far are being cruel, conscious or not. That's what I perceive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
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Yes, those that have posted here so far are being cruel, conscious or not. That's what I perceive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
You can tell by their sarcasm and mockery.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
Perfect World, Granado Espada, Aion, Everquest......on and on.
These games have far more grind than LoTRO, and its not apples to oranges. MMORPG is MMORPG.
The best gear in any game most often takes a lot of time to gain, why should LotRO be any different?
Not everyone that plays MMOs gets the best gear the game offers, for various reasons.
If your playstyle or schedule do not permit you to have the gear you want, live with what you have the time for or skills to accomplish.
Its "selfish" also, to ask a company to remove any chance for them to earn money, to suit you.
This same thing happened with Hytbold, people complaining about the grind. Turbine re-evaluated it, did they not?
They may or may not do the same here, but in the end, they still want to make a profit.
I'm here to try to relieve people of the prevalent notion that because you CAN get your items up to X power level, because Turbine allows you to, means you are obliged to burn yourself out doing so. What content are you running with non-maxed gear that you are unable to beat? If there isn't any, then there is no need to be grinding further than you are. If there were instances that we could not possibly beat unless everyone in our group was utterly maxed out, then I would agree that the amount of grind required was too much. But there isn't. You could argue that there's not much else to do at endgame, and that may be the case if you've cleaned out your deed log, but that's a different problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by DiogoVP
Put it another way... what if the potential grind was even worse? What if Turbine allowed you to add 100 crystals to each LI? 1000? 1000000? Would you complain that the cost of the grind was too much, or would you just decide that you're not going to bother with it because there's no point?
I'll let you in on the secret Turbine doesn't want you to know.
You don't need to do grind for any of that stuff.
Gasp!
That's right. The game plays the same without all that 'uber' stuff.
I am sorry, but Turbine is the one who has the most to lose here. Have you even put yourself into the trouble of reading my post and seeing the math involved there?Quote:
Originally Posted by Denebrian_Wintersong
I keep having to repeat this over and over again: this thread is not about asking for easy grind, but for a REASONABLE grind. Do you know the difference? People seem to be ignoring that.
I personally am not doing this for myself mainly, but I feel a sense of duty for the community to speak for them and have this pro-active attitude to start this thread before it is too late. I am seeing a lot of complain both in game and out of game about the grind.
And you said something key there: "live with what you have the time for or skills to accomplish". That is exactly what I am doing, but does it mean I should keep my mouth shutted and watch this game being destroyed? Hell no.
Turbine hasn't realized that they are trying to earn more money from a few players at the cost of many others leaving the game because they can't bear to go through this grind.
I said before that players supporting this and even turbine itself is being cruel, but I wanna be perfectly clear that I didn't mean to say they are conscious they are being cruel, you can do something with the best motives in the world and still be cruel. That doesn't mean that some other players are really only coming here to mock and make sarcasm, which is not appreciated.
Please, don't try to make this about how people are not willing to pay to play a game or how they do not understand the importance of Turbine's profit. Of course they need to make a profit. I've spent the best part of the last three days in another thread arguing that point with someone else. The point here though is the LI grind takes things too far. Look at it from this point of view.Quote:
Originally Posted by Denebrian_Wintersong
Using my monthly TP stipend if I sub month by month, I could buy 1 crystal, or almost 2 empowerment scrolls each month.
If i were to cancel my VIP and use that same money, to buy TP, there would be enough for 3 crystals or 6 empowerment scrolls each month.
I don't really need my VIP anymore, I have all the expacs and all my alts are 50+. I keep paying, because it supports the game.
When a particular grind gets so bad that I'm considering switching enough that I have looked into the costs I have just detailed in this post . . ..
It speaks volume. Or at least, it should.
When it becomes aparent that giving up a sub because TP item buying favours a grind that everyone and his dog is complaining about, alarm bells should be ringing really loud in the Turbine feedback hall.
So which should it be?
Should I continue to sub and support the game, even though I do not really need to sub?
Or should I cancel my sub, spend that money on TP and be financially in exactly the same boat, yet speed this grind up x 3 for myself?
Or maybe I should cancel my sub, spend a third of that money on TP, and keep the grind as it is - for less cost to myself.
If Turbine meant to allow 100 crystals, then it would be because they are expecting people will grind for that. So yes, I would complain and that is totally bs. I hope you don't take this a offense, it's not what I mean. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Vilan
If you think about it, everything in this game is optional... so should I accept everything Turbine does to the game? Even things that hurt the major player base?
So you did pull them all out of your ###. I ask again did you even read OP? It takes over 250 BBs according to OP to max ONE LI and that doesnt take account way of getting crystal of remembrance, right legacies and relics. On top of this you need average of 70-80 Osgiliath runs to get best armor - that while is grindy I think majority of of people think that's reasonable compared to LI system we have.Quote:
Originally Posted by Denebrian_Wintersong
You don't get the point, armors and LIs were hard to obtain in old days but NOBODY ever ran Watcher or BG or OD like 450+ times to get their weapons done. And shaking my head at bringing Hytbold here. It took, what, 44 days to complete (15-20mins per day)? hardly compared to closer to 500 BB runs you need for 2 LIs.
Grind like this only takes time but is no way challenging when you can afk complete big battles and in theory you could make macro-script to complete BBs for you and bot stars of merits.
Wow. I have not even started playing Gondor yet. Reading this I am not sure I want to. Do the Epic Line of Quests, sure, I will do them, as far as I can, but for a guy like me that considers the Spider slaying in the Barrow of Taradan a nuisance, well, you all effectively ruined my prospects of getting any high end gear in Anorien. I am on and off grinding reputation, deeds and crafting, and here you guys present me with a whole new level of MEGA grinding I will never have time to even attempt.
Right or wrong, the maths seem pretty simple, if you want to max out you need to spend those hours posted by DiogoVP.
Here I thought I was a slow leveler (20 months in game with 6 characters, one of them is 100), but compared to the requirements presented, hell, I might just race a snail on a freeway.
Count me out, Turbine.
I think the whole grind for equipment thing has gone out of the blue since they introduced essences and imbued weapons. Essences, in my opinion were introduced because turbine lacks the staff to design items tailored to characters levels (the so called itemization issue). Lacking staff or budget to design content approprieted sets of items, they outsourced to the players the equipment building process, selling it as a way to better customize your character. Imbued legendaries were developed to substitute the vertical improvement process of traditional lis with a horizontal one, probably because they don't plan to raise the level cap anymore.
This could have worked if the grind required to get the gear was skill based and not time based, and if there was some interesting content that needed that stuff to be run. However, you can't sell in the store skill, so they made the grind time based and with hefty prices, to drive people to the store.
This kind of marketing tactic works as long as you don't try to milk too much the cow. If you do, and they did it, the cow ie the players will perceive the unfairness of the system and the true nature of the service provided. Currently the real product that turbine is developing and designing is the store, the game is designed in a way that pushes people to buy all sort of grind reducers from the store. Lotro is just a driver to the lotro store.
I do think this is the inherent flaw in the f2p model, in time all is developed around maximizing the revenues from microtransactions, developers and product managers lose the long term vision of the product, and we all get to the state of Lotro nowadays.
Personally I always liked to play alts, and I have many. However, I stopped playing them after U14, and only concentrated on one/two characters. Mind you, I do have the money to buy stuff from the store, I would do that if I thought the whole balance was fair or at least not so hostile to players. What I do not have is the time to do all this time sinking grind. I do have a work, I do have a life, as most people playing this game do. I'm not wasting my time in repeating the same content hundreds of time like a hamster running his wheel until he drops dead.
Most of my kinmates are in the same boat as me, they are still playing Lotro because either is Lotr based or they lack the time to learn to play another game. Holidays are a good time for learning though.
As a personal note I would add that despite of the recurrent rounds of layoffs, when the current Exec Prod stepped in and the previous CM left, I had renewed faith in what lotro could bring for the future. However, after the design decisions taken in U17, the failure in providing the new hardware in a timely fashion, and the poor state U17 was delivered, I have lost all my faith in the current Lotro team. The atmosphere in the forum may have changed for the better, however the core issues in the development process remain the same, and are not amendable. Current service economics is based on customer faith in the company, when a company lose it, it starts to lose its business.
I've played for about two years now, have one level capped character who has every meta deed done through Rohan and all twenty virtues above current cap. So I have a pretty good capacity for grind. But lately, I find that I just can't summon up the enthusiasm to do DA dailies, the MT dailies and BBs over and over again. I've been settling just for the BBs, and have pretty much parked her otherwise. She doesn't have every trait point yet, and I find myself in no hurry to make that happen. Her staff is 43/44 and almost done, but I still need 70 ASOE for the book. It's depressing.
If I'm finding the grind oppressive, it's not surprising that lots of other folks are too.
Nobody is saying it shouldn't. It's a matter of degree. And that degree is inappropriately influenced by business decisions, not gameplay/design decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by Denebrian_Wintersong
But those who find enjoyment in that sort of playstyle should know that they are playing a game whose goals are determined by gameplay/design decisions, not by the need to annoy players into handing over money to avoid the game.Quote:
Not everyone that plays MMOs gets the best gear the game offers, for various reasons.
See above. You continue to (probably willfully) miss the point.Quote:
If your playstyle or schedule do not permit you to have the gear you want, live with what you have the time for or skills to accomplish.
As though that is at all what's going on here. People are asking a company to remove "any" chance to make money? Are you reading the same thread as everyone else? Oh, wait, you're finding that straw man an easier target than the arguments you can't address. Carry on.Quote:
Its "selfish" also, to ask a company to remove any chance for them to earn money, to suit you.
Keep saying this as though anyone is disputing it. Some people paying only cursory attention might mistake it for being wise or even just relevant.Quote:
They may or may not do the same here, but in the end, they still want to make a profit.
I don't like the grind. Luckily, I've also realised that I don't like instances, skirms or big battles. So I don't need to do them. I'll do something else instead. Maybe take care of the grimy dishes in my own kitchen. It is what heroes and heroines do, after all.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marancil
It's not nearly that bad. Since you mention the spiders in Barrow of Taradan, I consider those to be more of a problem that what I just completed in Anorien.
In fact, you can get comparable high-end gear in Anorien more easily now than we ever have before at a level cap. The 3-slot crafted gear is pretty equivalent to the 4-slot essence armor from DA, and doesn't require special components or craft mastery. Same for the crafted jewelry as compared to the EB gold jewelry. And the BIS cloak is available at the end of this section of the Epic quest.
That leaves the question of imbued LIs. You get 95% (or more) of the value of a "fully maxxed" LI without spending a single starlit crystal or scroll of empowerment. And you will be above that if you spend only the crystals and scrolls that you would normally spend on a old system LI at cap.
If you feel that you must max out your ILIs, then you can certainly do so at a reasonable pace as you play normally.
The grind only becomes crushing if you feel compelled to fully max out a stable of alts. I may be wrong, but you seem like a normal player progressing at a moderate pace. You haven't felt compelled to max out any of your characters after 20 months, so I'm not sure why that would change in the future.
Thanks for the laugh, Hurin. I know I can always count on you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
That aside, back to the OP...while I, of all people, would never tell someone not to complain...
Turbine simply doesn't give a s£$t so all the moaning in the world isn't going to matter. It's time we all came to that realization.
Vote with your wallet. Or your time. Unsub. Don't log in. Period. Or, accept things as they truly are:
We are 8 years into this game, if you think Turbine is ever going to 1)admit they alienated a large portion of their player base with their bad design decisions and 2)change course...you haven't been paying attention.
Update 17 should have been a monumental update (hello, Minas Tirith!), instead it was yet another bugged, rushed update. No matter how super awesome Minas Tirith looks, it doesn't hide the bugged Big Battles, the FPS spikes, the memory loss, the crashes...the fact that we've had two hot-fixes in almost 2 weeks and folks are still having issues in the new areas. And that is just the tip of the ice berg.
Is anyone really surprised that they put trait points behind a meta deed that is intrinsically linked to the store? Furthermore, do you really think they are going to change it??
Now be a good boy/girl and go kill 300 trolls--just don't forget to buy your deed reduction scroll from the store first! $$
:)
I checked out of daily grinds during Dol Amroth. After I realized that the rewards for said grind weren't worth the effort. Nothing I enjoy in LOTRO requires the best gear. I hate PvMP. I never raid. I loathe BBs. I shun pretty much all group content. Now, I just play the game for fun. This past weekend, I leveled an alt through the "new" North Downs (new to me) for the first time. That was fun. This weekend, between bites of turkey and with the football game in the background, I will finally break the seal on Eastern Gondor on my two mains. I've resisted starting the region until I had time to devote to it whole-hog. I'm hopeful I won't actually sleep until Sunday.:DQuote:
Originally Posted by Wormgirl
But the fact that I don't enjoy the content for which one might need to grind out the best gear doesn't make me unsympathetic to those who do enjoy such ... stuff. Hey, I hate eggplant, but I would hope that those who like eggplant could get one without growing it themselves. I don't drink beer, but I would pity the man or woman who had to walk barefoot across the Sahara to get a cold one. I don't eat cake, but heaven bless those who would have to parse out each fleck of flour while measuring it for the recipe.
TL;DR: I don't grind, but the grind is too grindily grindalicious.
I have a question, and this is not being some kind of fanboy or defending Turbine question.
Are you guys talking about being geared for pvp and BBs? I'm asking because I have a 99 guard and 100 LM doing landscape quests in Gondor right now. Both have crafted gear and the LM has no virtues over 10 and both are doing ok with landscape quests. And I'm the worlds worst for deed completions.
Again, it's a serious question. I'm not trying to argue with anyone.
And the laundry too. Don't forget the laundry. Sorry for double post, I'm on my phone.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wormgirl
My position on this: Turbine would get more money from me if they hadn't introduced essence gear and imbuement.
Why? Because I would have leveled my alts and bought stuff to reduce the grind. I would have bought mounts and cosmetics.
Instead, I have retired my alts. I'm not buying TP for my main, and I'm not grinding for anything to upgrade my gear. It's not worth it.
I have a job. I get paid to do my job. I'm not going to pay Turbine for the privilege of turning my game time into another job. I sub; that's enough.
For some, maxing their characters is the game. It's the point. You might as well ask a bodybuilder why they feel the need to be so big/strong since nothing in their everyday life requires them to be that big or strong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nymphonic
As Turbine derives more and more of its revenue by catering more and more towards those who will buy their way around huge swaths of the game, the playstyle of those who believe in earning what they obtain in the game is rendered untenable. Or, at the very least, it makes you feel like a sucker to be doing all the additional grinding that was only put in the game in order annoy others (and potentially you) to buy your way around it.
I answered that as nicely as I could. Because you seem to be genuinely curious and I've never known you to argue in bad faith. So this last part isn't directed at you. But my gawd I'm tired of the non-argument that "you don't need this stuff to complete content" whenever the grind is brought up. It's so utterly irrelevant to the point!
You have expressed it admirably.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
Your answer makes perfect sense. Thanks for the info. Much appreciated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hurin
PVP requires very good skill first, then good gear since you are to compete with other good players. Some of the bbs, expecially the dps race ones, are far easier when people have good gear and stats. BBs have their own grind too, by the way, higher ranks make them both easier and less boring. T2C content requires good gear period, no matter how good you are, if you haven't got enough morale or mits you die, and make your group fail too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nymphonic
If you are not a completionist in even the smalles way, If you are a role player hanging in eriador all the time, If you only enjoy landscape quests, if you don't play group content, if you don't pvp, then you don't need to grind for anything at all. Every landscape solo quest can be completed with quest gear, 3rd age li's and zero virtues at all.
But hey, how many ifs had I to put in that sentence :)
This is the closest to what I feel. I do think the cost on ASoE are a bit too high, and as a result I'm not going to try to max out all my level 100s. I don't need to. I want one that is maxed, and the rest are fine with whatever comes easily. But if you DO want to max yourself out it should not be that easy for a new player - come on...all games have grind. I get that the grind feels too large - i don't agree on changing what's required for virtues and traits tree points, but I do on imbued LIs. But don't do it if you don't want to. It's not like the extra little bit is critical for most content. And I *do* feel like my LI is a huge part of me now. I just am unwilling to get it perfect on some of my alts. That's ok by me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vilan
I *do* wish ASoE's dropped directly in group instances. I get we have marks/med/seals but let's throw some of the scrolls in too to help with the grind. There were a ton of groups due to the VIP buff this weekend (more Thorog runs in one 4-day period than perhaps all previous LOTRO combined!). None of this is a replacement for (new?) group content, but it was fun seeing so many 24 man raids running, and a lot of people were doing it that had never raided or done Hele before, which was cool.