Unintended Consequences of Radiance Removal

Maybe it's because my main is an RK, but I've always thought itemization in this game was pretty wonky. Some of my items have...wait for it...strength. Yeah, seriously. And the amount of agility they put on my items makes me want to cry.

Add to that the fact that RK's don't benefit from Legendary Titles (our stones inherently have fire, lightning, cold already) and you slowly start to get the idea that there's a disconnect somewhere in the itemization department.

So.

I had high hopes for the Radiance Removal - a chance for the devs to take another crack at the endgame armor sets.

I had saved up a whole bunch of STM's (35) and annu/hele marks so that after taking apart the adjusted armor stats I could invest in a full set of gear.

After all, SO much of the itemization value of those gearsets was put into Radiance. You'd assume they'd add some stats after taking it away.

Not the case. They simply removed the radiance without changing anything else.

Shouldn't someone in the itemization department be putting up strong objection to that? After all...you're taking away the one thing about these sets that made them unique and special.

I had hoped, particularly on the RK side, that they'd have diversified the various sets, given us some interesting mix and match opportunities.

So, as my raid leader said, "They took radiance away from the boss fights too" - and that's great.

But without rebalancing the gear, you've significantly dropped the value of that gear.

I'm not sure what I've been farming for. :/

There was value in the original Hope sets. Turbine decided that Hope + stats was over powered. Turbine nerfed the original Hope sets. Changed them to Radiance sets. Radiance is a zero value stat.

IMHO - If you were farming radiance sets, you were misguided. Clearly the only reason for radiance is a key to let you into the three gloom instances. Since radiance is a zero value stat, Turbine could remove it without any replacement.

The grand majority of the radiance gear was absolutely terrible(stat wise). Without any of my gear getting a 'makeover'(Some stats getting boosted) I have absolutely no reason to ever equip it anywhere but my cosmetic slots.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

The grand majority of the radiance gear was absolutely terrible(stat wise). Without any of my gear getting a 'makeover'(Some stats getting boosted) I have absolutely no reason to ever equip it anywhere but my cosmetic slots.

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This may be true, but almost universally, the best armor for a class was a set that had radiance on it. Whether it was DN, BG, Moria or helegrod.

The changes were on Bulroarer for over a month. No other stats on existing sets were modified when Radiance was removed. Debates were held and forums topics were made. Devs came in and declared that existing sets would not be changed. People slowly accepted in and moved on to rant about other things.

I am sorry you wasted some time investment, but there were ways for you to know in advance that the sets you're wearing now will not magically improve.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

The grand majority of the radiance gear was absolutely terrible(stat wise).

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Agreed. Because of the poor stats, I never acquired any radiance gear before Helegrod sets came out. The Gloom instances were not interesting enough for me get an inferior set of armor just for that content.

It does call into question why we even have the Helegrod/Annuiminas skirmish barter armour now. Without radiance, it's all just about completely junk.

And there you are, another surprised middle-earther ^_^

One of the things I would do is this.

Make it so that when you collect a 6-Piece set of armor you can take all the numbered-set benefits and turn it into a buff. Not the stats or the armor rating, just the collected piece bonuses. Then you can wear another 6-Piece set and have 2 set bonus, one with your equipment and another with your buff.

I would also get rid of the standard barter coin system for armor pieces. No more running one instance a few dozen times to get everything. Make it so you need coins as well as a drop off a boss mob to get an armor piece.

This would mean people would be running more instances to get all their set bonus buffs as well as different instances to get the other drops they need.

I'll try to clear up some of the confusion. Radiance was never what you'd call an 'instead of' stat. You didn't get 25 Radiance instead of 10 will. It was a unique stat unto itself that did not replace or supplant any other. Therefore, when it was removed there was nothing to replace or adjust as it never impacted other stats in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Koboldfodder

One of the things I would do is this.

Make it so that when you collect a 6-Piece set of armor you can take all the numbered-set benefits and turn it into a buff. Not the stats or the armor rating, just the collected piece bonuses. Then you can wear another 6-Piece set and have 2 set bonus, one with your equipment and another with your buff.

I would also get rid of the standard barter coin system for armor pieces. No more running one instance a few dozen times to get everything. Make it so you need coins as well as a drop off a boss mob to get an armor piece.

This would mean people would be running more instances to get all their set bonus buffs as well as different instances to get the other drops they need.

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They've already done this to a degree. You no longer get barter items out of the chests, just from completing the bi-weekly quest. You can run the easiest instance 100 times in a week, but you'll only get barter items from it twice. If you just run the one instance, it will take you forever to get your set.

I see your point, although havent been a raider for years, we worked on getting the first radiance sets for everybody and I had the first set on a couple chars ...so we could wipe on the watcher over and over. The radiance gathering and the subsequent watcher frustration resulted in many kin leaving the game and we haven't raided since...except for a lot of turtle runs, but no more radiance gathering.

I just assumed something would be added when radiance was removed. Must be kinda disappointing for the guys who continued the radiance acquisition game.

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Originally Posted by DemonicLemming

It does call into question why we even have the Helegrod/Annuiminas skirmish barter armour now. Without radiance, it's all just about completely junk.

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I got my Hele sets because the stats were much better than the stats that I had on my non-Hele armor.

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Originally Posted by Sapience

I'll try to clear up some of the confusion. Radiance was never what you'd call an 'instead of' stat. You didn't get 25 Radiance instead of 10 will. It was a unique stat unto itself that did not replace or supplant any other. Therefore, when it was removed there was nothing to replace or adjust as it never impacted other stats in the first place.

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When compare lat nite my BG armor with similar new Tiers 2 armor from the new raid, the new set have more indivudual stat. As BG is the highest raid armor, should't it have the same amount of stat, mind you not as high as the new raid armor set?

I can understand radiance have no value, but put the old set on par with the new one. Turbine really look like a hungry beast that only want money, no i won't quit because i have a life time account and no you can't have my stuff. But you can be sure that i won't spend more money to feed the beast.

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Originally Posted by Tborg1

When compare lat nite my BG armor with similar new Tiers 2 armor from the new raid, the new set have more indivudual stat. As BG is the highest raid armor, should't it have the same amount of stat, mind you not as high as the new raid armor set?

I can understand radiance have no value, but put the old set on par with the new one. Turbine really look like a hungry beast that only want money, no i won't quit because i have a life time account and no you can't have my stuff. But you can be sure that i won't spend more money to feed the beast.

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Isn't one of those sets teal and the other purple?

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Originally Posted by Sapience

I'll try to clear up some of the confusion. Radiance was never what you'd call an 'instead of' stat. You didn't get 25 Radiance instead of 10 will. It was a unique stat unto itself that did not replace or supplant any other. Therefore, when it was removed there was nothing to replace or adjust as it never impacted other stats in the first place.

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I understand that's the official point of view. But balance that with the idea that higher radiance gear is harder to get for the same (or lesser) base stats and you have a player with nowhere to go after moria gear.

Whether you say so or not...the itemization value is implied. Yesterday there was value in this stat, making it worth the grind.

"Yeah, I know your stats won't go up, but you need to farm it anyway because it will forward your ability to push through raid content".

That statement is no longer true.

I'm one of the few perhaps that saw the beauty in the Radiance design. It's not the first time we've seen "gear check" raids, naturally this kind of thinking is core to mmo design. I wanted to grind it out because I wanted to see the content. It kept me engaged.

The point is, if Radiance was the "gateway stat" to harder content...what is now? And if we're just removing it without forcing greater gear in general....aren't we just making the game easier?

If you'll forgive me for the dramatic suggestion, isn't the simplification of PvE requirements usually the beginning of the end of a game? I'm straying from my original point, but...I don't WANT anyone to just be able to walk into Watcher.

I guess I'm saying I WANT it to be hard, I want it to be earned. If I don't need this gear to progress...what's the point. I feel like your intended arc of endgame content has been somewhat interrupted.

You COULD have, for instance, added more vitality to these gearsets - or more regen. And then made the bosses slightly harder in that respect - after all, they just took a big nerf, not being able to blast through non-radiance wearers. Rebalancing the fights would have been well within your rights.

So, I know I'm late to the conversation here (and the point about it being on test servers is well taken) but I think I'll be the guy to suggest that players whining that the game is hard isn't a reason to nerf the game.

You've shortened the endgame arc without adding a significant amount of engame content. Don't you ultimately think this is going to yield faster endgame burnout?

There should always be a proportional difficulty:reward paradigm. Harder difficulty yields better lootz. With those better lootz, one progresses to harder content, which yields even more epic lootz. Without the epic lootz, you can't do the insane content, gain the stupendous lootz, which you wear while standing in Bree to be revered as a player-God.

It has always, always been thus in MMO's.

Traditionally, when MMO's give into the whiny faction, it is when the serious players start to say, "Yeah, that's a kid's mmo."

I really, really don't want that to happen here. And I'm not suggesting that this is in any way the beginning of the end of LOTRO. But I do hope the point is taken by Turbine: Watered down, non-progression based content does not satisfying endgame make.

Ridding the /lff channel of 2.5.5 requests is a good thing. Simplifying endgame gearchecks...I'm not so sure that is.

/shrug

None of this is news, though. We knew radiance was being removed, so surely the obvious assumption is that you look at your rad armour and imagine what it looks like without any radiance on it.

It's not news that people were forced into wearing trash purely because of its radiance value. It made people very annoyed, and was one of the reasons (I hope) for its removal. Players like to seek a fine armour set and they don't want to then put it away and wear some old rags for the top raids just because of some arbitrary non-stat.

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you have a player with nowhere to go after moria gear.

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This is a problem with LOTRO's itemisation, but not with radiance. Even with radiance in the game, plenty of players still sought out a good non-radiance set of armour, mixing and matching with Moria, DN, BG and then Helegrod and Annuminas, and some quest pieces and crafted pieces also. Now that is what everyone will do. No one will be forced to wear anything inferior. If you're finding you can't find good pieces in the 5 sets, quest items and crafteds then that would be a matter for debate. Radiance didn't cause a lack of bad Runekeeper items (and I don't have one so I can't comment.)

Thanks for the response Sapience.

Makes perfect sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

There should always be a proportional difficulty:reward paradigm. Harder difficulty yields better lootz. With those better lootz, one progresses to harder content, which yields even more epic lootz. Without the epic lootz, you can't do the insane content, gain the stupendous lootz, which you wear while standing in Bree to be revered as a player-God.

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I love you.
That made me chuckle.

On a serious note....everything else in your post on this topic receives my +1

The problem with what you wrote, Eqiel, is that you are treating LOTRO just like any other MMO.

Many of us have been here from the beginning, from before the beginning...back in the early days of closed beta (even closed alpha) testing. The devs have said from day 1 that in many ways LOTRO was absolutely, positively NOT going to be just like other MMO's. And one of the big ways it would be different is it would not become a raid-centric game, where the only way to get the best loot was to be a hardcore raider, doing harder and harder raids for better & better loot, while everything else in the game gets left in the dust.

Which is, in so many words, what you are saying you wish LOTRO was.

Removing radiance is not some sort of first step in the simplification of the game...it's removing something that was added long after the game was first established, and something that quite frankly, was foreign to the very nature of what the game was about.

As has been said many times, there are TONS of MMO's out there that cater to the people who want an endgame-raiding-focused game. Tons of games. LOTRO was created to be something different.

Myself, I think there could have been a way radiance could have been implemented such that it fit more with the nature of LOTRO. Forcing people to repeat the same freaking instances 85,000 times was the wrong way to do it. I think it would have been much more in the spirit of LOTRO to make radiance deed based...so radiance isn't something "on" pieces of gear, it is something possessed by the player himself/herself. And you get it from completing a deed by slaying a given instance/raid boss. ONCE. Such an approach would fit the spirit of LOTRO much better, as well as being a much better fit with the Tolkien lore.

But any system at all that excludes large portions of the playerbase from content, for the only reason being they have not spent hundreds of hours grinding the same instances over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again... was a system that was doomed to failure in this game.

LOTRO is not like other MMO's. At one point the devs had a brain freeze and forgot that fact, and the backlash from the player base (regarding the whole radiance thing) was the predictable and inevitable result.

I don't think very many players (even us non-hardcore-raiders) would object to a very simple "gating" system that required you to beat (again, ONCE) certain easier instances before getting access to harder ones. But any gating system that requires hundreds of hours of mindless, boring grind...that's a totally different story.

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

If you'll forgive me for the dramatic suggestion, isn't the simplification of PvE requirements usually the beginning of the end of a game? I'm straying from my original point, but...I don't WANT anyone to just be able to walk into Watcher.

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So....you want to lock content away behind walls that make it inaccessible to all but those you consider to be "elite"? Why is that?

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I guess I'm saying I WANT it to be hard, I want it to be earned. If I don't need this gear to progress...what's the point. I feel like your intended arc of endgame content has been somewhat interrupted.

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I understand that WoW has a mechanic of needing to raids to get gear to survive the next level of raid, and on and on... Have you considered playing WoW instead of LoTRO?

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Removing radiance didn't make anything easier, just less grindy. Now we can include friends who don't have the key to the gate because they don't play as often. Playing an MMO with friends is what its all about to me. The fight should be just as hard, just more accessible. If I can't stand around in Bree looking like a player-God, then good, +1 rep for Turbine. But this is my first MMO, I love how it started and I dont want it to become typical, if thats what typical is.

Well, I've annoyed the loyalists.

There are a lot of ways to skin the endgame-design-cat. And LOTRO certainly has some cool options.

To be clear, I'm not complaining, I'm concerned.

I don't think anyone can deny the endgame arc has been significantly shortened by these choices. I was, yesterday, one of the players who would not have qualified for an endgame raid.

Now, without a single shred of new gear...I do.

This isn't about elitism. It's about endgame longevity. I'm not trying to suggest that LOTRO mimic another game's PvE structure, I'm saying it DID mimic another game's structure. The purpose of the mechanic was to extend the endgame arc.

Now that mechanic is gone, with no gear check in place to replace it.

If you don't see that as a problem...okay. But I do, and it isn't about elitism, it isn't about trying to make LOTRO a WoW clone.

It's about endgame content longevity. Which is now shorter.

I can't imagine that you guys seriously think that's a 100% wise move. There's a give-and-take balance here.

HOW LOTRO gets us there I could care less about. There's SOOOO much good in this game.

But it's a dangerous design precedent, in my humble opinion. Moves like this make for faster burnout, in my 20 year MMO experience.

And if you'd like to flame me for that...flame away.

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

Well, I've annoyed the loyalists.

There are a lot of ways to skin the endgame-design-cat. And LOTRO certainly has some cool options.

To be clear, I'm not complaining, I'm concerned.

I don't think anyone can deny the endgame arc has been significantly shortened by these choices. I was, yesterday, one of the players who would not have qualified for an endgame raid.

Now, without a single shred of new gear...I do.

This isn't about elitism. It's about endgame longevity. I'm not trying to suggest that LOTRO mimic another game's PvE structure, I'm saying it DID mimic another game's structure. The purpose of the mechanic was to extend the endgame arc.

Now that mechanic is gone, with no gear check in place to replace it.

If you don't see that as a problem...okay. But I do, and it isn't about elitism, it isn't about trying to make LOTRO a WoW clone.

It's about endgame content longevity. Which is now shorter.

I can't imagine that you guys seriously think that's a 100% wise move. There's a give-and-take balance here.

HOW LOTRO gets us there I could care less about. There's SOOOO much good in this game.

But it's a dangerous design precedent, in my humble opinion. Moves like this make for faster burnout, in my 20 year MMO experience.

And if you'd like to flame me for that...flame away.

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People who disagree with you aren't loyalists. They simply disagree. A putdown, however subtle is a putdown and frankly, given the otherwise reasonable tone of your post, beneath you.

I tend to disagree that those gear gates are needed. I too come from a 20 year history of gaming and I don't buy that that the gate design is the ONLY way endgame can be built. Turbine has shown us they know how to build things differently, the minstrel for example is a very different main healer, and I've played them all in MMO's.

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

The point is, if Radiance was the "gateway stat" to harder content...what is now?

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Cash.

Look at the stacking dots in the new instances and the triple-removal pots only available in the store.

I'll try the new instances with my kin, but i'll be damned if anyone expects me to buy pots from the store in order to complete this content and its new "gate".

#hatesthestore

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

Well, I've annoyed the loyalists.

There are a lot of ways to skin the endgame-design-cat. And LOTRO certainly has some cool options.

To be clear, I'm not complaining, I'm concerned.

I don't think anyone can deny the endgame arc has been significantly shortened by these choices. I was, yesterday, one of the players who would not have qualified for an endgame raid.

Now, without a single shred of new gear...I do.

This isn't about elitism. It's about endgame longevity. I'm not trying to suggest that LOTRO mimic another game's PvE structure, I'm saying it DID mimic another game's structure. The purpose of the mechanic was to extend the endgame arc.

Now that mechanic is gone, with no gear check in place to replace it.

If you don't see that as a problem...okay. But I do, and it isn't about elitism, it isn't about trying to make LOTRO a WoW clone.

It's about endgame content longevity. Which is now shorter.

I can't imagine that you guys seriously think that's a 100% wise move. There's a give-and-take balance here.

HOW LOTRO gets us there I could care less about. There's SOOOO much good in this game.

But it's a dangerous design precedent, in my humble opinion. Moves like this make for faster burnout, in my 20 year MMO experience.

And if you'd like to flame me for that...flame away.

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Not going to flame, but a calm, rational discussion could be productive.

I see people always talking about "end game". So far as I am concerned, the "end game" starts *after* the Ring has been destroyed, if then.

If there were no level cap raises or new areas added, I could still keep myself happily active in game for at least 2 years just with what we have now, and I've been playing since closed beta.

Complaints about "end game raids" and "lack of content" and "lack of things to do" just ring hollow with me. From where I sit, it speaks of people who aren't using a lot of the existing activities in the game and just focusing of a few, narrow aspects of it. (And at that, I neither raid nor Pv(M)P. Give me another 2-3 years with no additional content added and I might have time to consider taking up raiding...but I've got too much to do in the mean time to even think about that.)

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

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Originally Posted by Eqiel

Whether you say so or not...the itemization value is implied. Yesterday there was value in this stat, making it worth the grind.

"Yeah, I know your stats won't go up, but you need to farm it anyway because it will forward your ability to push through raid content".

That statement is no longer true.

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In point of fact that statement was never true. Gloom was a gate. Radiance was the key. It opened a door and provided only access, nothing more.

As the question has now been asked and answered and the thread is clearly starting to deteriorate, there is no point in continuing the discussion.