Where did LOTRO go wrong?

[GREENFROST]

Where did LOTRO go wrong?

Some point to:
-Moria expansion! The whole expansion was entirely underground (no day light) some were put off by this, I personally liked it
-The legendary system-- when first introduced, it was complicated, grindy, side tracking busy work

*In your opinion at what point did LOTRO start going down the wrong path?



on another note: Who knows maybe we will get a reboot!
Original LOTRO=Shadows of Angmar
LOTRO(2)=Shadows of Mordor
*I know there is a game with that title already, (publishers Warner bros interactive entertainment (WBIE) developer Monolith), but what the heck!
But it’s (Middle-Earth: Shadows of Mordor) versus (LOTRO: Shadows of Mordor)

Cheers
friends

[asimon]

Free to Play. That's when it all started going downhill.
I know.. because I'm in LOTRO since pre-beta.

[beorf]

Where did LOTRO go wrong?

Tobold said this on his blog and it pretty much sums it, I think:

Funnily enough I have a "lifetime subscription" for LotRO. I very much like the world, and was on an extremely entertaining and friendly RP server. My problem with LotRO is that I hate the combat system which is so unresponsive. This is why I stopped, and it is what stops me every time I reinstall and try again.

If you come from any other videogame, you have to be pretty determined to fight through the clunky gameplay to experience the goodness of Lotro.

IMHO, the best thing Turbine could do to make this popular again is to polish the movement and combat: eliminate all movement lag (rearchitect the client-server architecture to be more like WoW) and reduce cooldowns to make the gameplay snappy and responsive.

[Vehdren]

Tobold said this on his blog

IMHO, the best thing Turbine could do to make this popular again is to polish the movement and combat: eliminate all movement lag (rearchitect the client-server architecture to be more like WoW) and reduce cooldowns to make the gameplay snappy and responsive.

Up until the class revamp I would have said that class/skill mechanics and combat in LOTRO was better than almost anything else out there. I can no longer say that but its far from the biggest issues with LOTRO. In saying that there are 3 classes I used to love I now have no interest in playing because of the changes. There were some positives in the revamp but some classes in my opinion were utterly ruined.

[trancejeremy]

From the beginning, I would say. When I started playing (when it was sub), there were zero people after the starting area - no one but me apparently kept playing after the free trial.

The problem is that it was a casual, mass market license applied to (originally) a fairly standard, even unforgiving MMORPG. By that I mean you were expected not only to know what things like Tank/DPS/Healer/CC were, but to know how to play those roles. The game itself never taught them, despite again, it being a very mass market license.

Beyond that, you had very casual unfriendly things, like not getting a horse until level 35 (which took me several months), the terrible virtue grind (which has since gotten much worse), and forced grouping everywhere, constantly. You'd do 2-3 quests in a chain, then the final one would be for groups. But as there was no one else playing at low levels, you just couldn't do them. And no global chat. I literally never saw anyone speak in game until I accidentally found my way into Eregion (this was right before the Moria launch, and where everyone in the game was). Quest rewards were useless as gear, no one sold anything on the AH, so you'd have to craft your own gear, which at the time required alts. Just a punishing game for anyone not in a guild (which is probably most casual players, especially as in this game, guilds don't recruit much. I've never been asked, not even random blind invites like in other games)

Moria was a decent expansion, but it was dark and confusing. Also introduced the dreaded LI grind and impossible rep grinds (for a casual player). Mirkwood was interesting, but I didn't like it because I literally couldn't do the opening instance without dying until I was 64. Isengard was good though, and I think revived the game somewhat

But any positive momentum with Isengard was killed with Rohan and mounted combat. Just completely ruined the game for a lot of people. And then Helm's Deep seemed to have no actual audience. It was designed around grouping, but groupers apparently hate big battles and want proper raids.

[FundinStrongarm]

And then Helm's Deep seemed to have no actual audience. It was designed around grouping, but groupers apparently hate big battles and want proper raids.

Helm's Deep was the most solo-friendly expansion Turbine ever made for LotRO. Yes, groupers (generally) aren't all that fond of the couple grouping BBs but I'd hardly say the expansion was designed around grouping. Far from it. Almost ZERO quests require a group of any kind to compete. At best, there's maybe a couple small fellowship quests. Compare it to Angmar or North Downs or almost any other zone prior to RoI and it isn't even close.

[RJFerret]

I was going to say it hasn't, when you set your foot out the door you don't know where'll you'll end up to abuse the line, but trait trees not only caused a surprisingly large number of people to bail, those who have even tried to return only give it a session or two.

[Macroscian]

I'm still here and so are you. Unless you remain like a ghost on forums or log into the game just to troll - which seems to be a sport to a few on my old home server Brandywine. No, I have no idea why those few can't find entertainment elsewhere. They are five people - where turbine goes wrong is allowing them to remain, haha! Two sweary, arrogant sociopaths and three younger acolytes. I say burn them all in effigy!

Moria? It's the most densley packed expansion I've ever seen in any game. I played with Codemasters before sauntering over to US services a year ahead of Le Big Migration - restarted here mainly due to Moria being such an awesome experience - I didn't mind running it over and over. It's an almost great experience still, after revamp 1 and 2. I really miss getting half a level from fighting my way through a corridor back to quest hub.

On BW server, every hour a new-old name pops in to say Hi, how's it been and could we please say what the changes were past year or two? - indicating that a year or so ago was a time that many went away. I've heard mentioned the endless grind for gold items as a big factor in giving up. This constant flow of returning gamers has been ongoing for at least a month.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Helm's Deep was the most solo-friendly expansion Turbine ever made for LotRO. Yes, groupers (generally) aren't all that fond of the couple grouping BBs but I'd hardly say the expansion was designed around grouping. Far from it. Almost ZERO quests require a group of any kind to compete. At best, there's maybe a couple small fellowship quests. Compare it to Angmar or North Downs or almost any other zone prior to RoI and it isn't even close.

The point TJ made was that Epic Battles were not solo-friendly for those starting out with them and on low tiers of engineer etc though of course it's somewhat ironic when that is juxtaposed against the solo focus of the open world content.

[Egilric]

Tobold said this on his blog and it pretty much sums it, I think:


If you come from any other videogame, you have to be pretty determined to fight through the clunky gameplay to experience the goodness of Lotro.

IMHO, the best thing Turbine could do to make this popular again is to polish the movement and combat: eliminate all movement lag (rearchitect the client-server architecture to be more like WoW) and reduce cooldowns to make the gameplay snappy and responsive.

I'd agree with most of this.

Its not just that the combat mechanics are unresponsive its also that the combat as a whole is too static and far too slow.

My main is a LM and to be honest it feels like I am playing in slow-motion a lot of the time.

I've recently been playing WoW and Wildstar - in both games combat feels more urgent, more dynamic and a whole lot more responsive.

In WoW there are situational skills that ignore the GCD and can be used even while "casting" another ability. Most skills are either instant cast with a CD, or have a cast time but little to no CD and many require an initiator - a crit hit, a parry etc. So you have a lot to keep an eye on and to then use appropriately.

Most LOTRO skills have a cast time AND a CD. There's very few skills that activate as a response to a PROC, and this makes combat feel very, very slow and unresponsive.

I've not played LOTRO significantly since HD but have recently returned because a) the IP is that good, b) the game-world is IMO the best realised game-world in the MMO market, and c) the game can be hugely enjoyable.

But the "wading through molasses" nature of combat and the direction the game has taken recently (gating content behind badly implemented "mini-games" I have no interest in) is making it very hard for me to love this game like I used to, and like I want to.

Oh, and Trait Trees. Why? I doubt any MMO producer has ever made as big a retrograde step as Turbine did introducing Trait Trees. The old trait system was IMO one of the best features of the game - allowing truly personal play styles, and allowing players to inventively and appropriately customise their build for specific content. It was IMO a market leading feature of LOTRO. And then we get the "improvement" of Trait Trees - and tons of deliberate disinformation that Trait Trees will give us "more choice" when in fact they reduced build choice by close to 80%.

All The Best

[TKH]

When did LOTRO go wrong, huh?

I guess it was during RoR with the launch of Erebor instance cluster and then Wildermore?

The first was completely unrelated to Rohan and showed signs of Turbine pursuing/being forced to make an effort to appeal itself to the viewers of the Hobbit movie. The instance cluster itself were meh. The 3-man ones were a long trip with many trash mobs, the 6-man was so-so, the raids were too grindy. It was also when the raid lock got removed, making short raids like them become grindable. And the candy drops of 2nd age/1st age symbol that attracted a lot of PuG raid groups before the loot got nerfed. This has happened a few times, and seems to be Turbine's intention for whatever reason.

Wildermore was weak in story-telling, which was the strong point of LOTOR. The way it concluded the story about an Ice Giant wreaking havic in Wildermore was underwhelmed. It would be better if the giant was a boss of a 6-man instance. Wildermore also did not include any kind of instance (even Great River has one), and seemed to be the last updatethat Turbine actually tried to improve Mounted Combat system. I like the system, but it stopped growing since HD and even got nerfed for some reason.

[Hammadryad]

I thik where Turbine went wrong was to decide which part of their customer base was to be their target audience and try to alter the game most people loved and make it more like other MMOs to try and appeal to the fickle crowd who would spend a few bucks and move on, rather than keep the wider player base they already had happy. A cashgrab for quick bucks from a rapid turnover of new players or steady income from a dedicated fanbase. See which way Turbine went and see what happened to the game because of it!

[Egilric]

I think one way that LOTRO has lost its way is in doing things half way.

Mounted Combat: great idea, badly realised, some improvements made then left to fester as assigning "Dev Time" to the "next new thing" becomes the priority.

I'm going to go out on a limb here: one of the things I really like (but thought was never quite as good as it could and should have been) was Hytbold.

And it seems to me that the Garrisons in WoD for WoW are the logical progression to what LOTRO introduced with Hytbold.

Our characters are often the vanguard of the Free Peoples in the regions we quest, it makes sense then for us to set up a "garrison" and to use it as a base of operations and to obtain some benefit from doing so.

WoD achieves all of that with Garrisons.

Please don't get me wrong here, I'm not asking for LOTRO to be more like WoW. IMO LOTRO led the way here with Hytbold, but then moved to the "next new thing" without fully developing what it had with Hytbold.

Imagine a base in each region, how we develop that base gives us access to different quest lines, different dailies, different crafting resources and facilities. But instead of being like Hytbold, where what we did in Hytbold stays in Hytbold and the only way to develop Hytbold was to do Hytbold dailies imagine if we can gain resources for "New Hytbold" by normal questing within the game-world zone, imagine were the "bonuses" we gain from "New Hytbold" go with us out into the game-world zone.

So, if for example, we build a Stable we get a passive mounted movement speed buff. If we upgrade our stable we get a mounted combat buff.
If we had Prospector we could build a Mine, to give us a daily craft resource run, upgrading the Mine gives us more resources.
Building a Forge would give WS and MS a passive buff to Crits, or unlocks improved recipes etc.

And then, just to make this "New Hytbold" truly brilliant have it "Bound To Account", so that all our characters can benefit from the same basic infrastructure development.

This requires LOTRO to commit to "finishing what it starts" before moving on to the "next new thing".

But if it did that we'd have a far more immersive game-world, which would for most LOTRO players lead to a far happier player-base. And happy customers spend money.

All The Best

[Lilka]

Just a punishing game for anyone not in a guild (which is probably most casual players, especially as in this game, guilds don't recruit much. I've never been asked, not even random blind invites like in other games)

Are you on a very quiet server? Eldar's channels are full of kin adverts, and the best way is to look in kin forums at their recruiting notices there.

I disagree Moria's rep grind was 'impossible'. It's one of the easiest in the game, as you have loads of quests and drop items. Not like regions with a handful of quests, no drops and just a daily grind of 4 +300 boosts.

I feel a lot of the areas that 'LOTRO went wrong' were problems that affect the whole MMO market. LOTRO isn't unique and special in its struggle to attract players (the old MMO crowd of raiders and grinders have grown up, but not been replaced by a new crop of youngsters. They play differently) and create the content that the new players want to see (very easy, very short, low effort, high reward.) They went FTP because paid games died out. They stopped making raids because players didn't play them. They stopped making group content because players refused to group (see the above complaints about people unable to find groups for fellowship quests.) They had to create a store, so they made problems - lengthy rep grinds - and sold the solutions.

A few years ago I might have whinged "bad, naughty Turbine" but the truth is, every MMO I've gone to since has had the same issues. Forced to go FTP because no one paid. Forced to drop raids because no one played. Cut the challenge because people left in droves. MMOs as a whole just aren't the powerhouse they once were. It's the age of Candy Crush, not WoW. People want Minecraft and stuff, not to be funnelled down an RPG storyline. I think LOTRO would have drained money and been shut down long ago if they'd stuck to the idea of pleasing a small portion of dedicated fans rather than generating money by attracting the casuals.

The movie industry, television, music, it's all the same really. They make what sells. Try something different and no one sees it, no one buys it, no one listens. Make the same. Make it cheap. Put the same actors in it so people don't get too startled. Base it on a familiar story. Make a sequel. Put the actors in different costumes and tell the story again in a different era. The indie developers might thrive, but only on the small scale. Mass market means more of the same. Superhero sequels, shape-matching games and cash shop MMOs.

Looking at it through those pessimistic eyes, LOTRO's done a great job of keeping afloat while keeping most of its integrity. It could have been a lot worse.

[colhelm]

Just a note about eldar,last Friday we had organised through the pvp community to try and revive the moors and it was a success in my opinion and quite a few others.Some of us took the decision to do this after weeks of peeps on world chat constantly askin if any action was goin on,its still continuing this week on a daily basis(slowly) but it is working.Personally after pvp'in for many yrs im now concentrating on pve through the week and pvp at weekends.Again because the lack of end game a few of us have started a new kin to go through all the 3,6,12 man raid content taking with us peeps who have never experienced some of the game content(maybe boring to some peeps) but at the end of the day its either continue and try new ways to keep friends in the game doing stuff together or leaving.

As for my opinion where turbine has gone wrong especially with the moors was allowing the #### so called pro-players access to macro's and multi-boxin,they are a scourge on LOTRO going from server to server , good riddance to the 1's who left eldar im sure the community wont welcome u bk,and sorry to the servers they do land on.

[Ruflus]

Isengard was good though

Isengard was and remains an abomination.

As regards end-game, the best thing they could do is improve PvP. However, top priority for me remains landscaping Gondor (targeted at soloists) between Dol Amroth and the Anduin. I would prefer Ithilien/Northern Mordor being targeted at groups.

[Bungomungo]

Where did LOTRO go wrong?

Some point to:
-Moria expansion! The whole expansion was entirely underground (no day light) some were put off by this, I personally liked it

The Moria expansion was the best thing to ever happen to this game. It was polished, with loads to do - I enjoyed the raids and instances. During Moria the game was full of people looking for groups, gearing up and having loads of fun. For me, Moria shines far and above anything else that has been released.

Yeah, it was underground, dark and claustrophobic. They captured it perfectly

[Egilric]

Isengard was and remains an abomination.

As regards end-game, the best thing they could do is improve PvP.

How would that fix end-game for the 90% of players, including me, who never do PvP?

Now, I agree that we need genuine instances, 3 and 6 man.

But PvP and Raids are niche parts of the game that between them probably only serve 20% of the total playing community.

Landscape content is too easy and what decent gear there is to enable "casual" players to make the transition to raiding is gated behind an interminable grind.

Wildstar built its entire game philosophy around the belief that because players in other MMOs were calling out for "hard core" challenging content that what they actually wanted was a grind-fest to unlock another grind-fest. Already Wildstar are having to rethink as players, including myself, leave in droves.

I like a bit of challenging content.

What I loathe, with a passion, is having to do that challenging content 20 times just to get enough tokens to buy one bit of gear.

It really isn't the "challenge" of end-game that bores me; its the grind.

Game designers really need to get to grips with understanding that rinse-repeat-content is NOT a substitute for genuine challenging and gated content.

Which brings me to the point of gating and raid locks. Once I have completed "unlock 1" of some content I should NEVER have to do it again UNLESS I choose to.

If it then takes me another 20 goes to complete the challenge of "unlock 2" then fine; but forcing me to re-do "unlock 1" again for any reason is a guaranteed way of making me never play that content again.

Once I have achieved a progression threshold I should never be forced to achieve it again.

Raid Lock Resets are just another "rinse-repeat" substitute for genuinely challenging content.

All The Best

[Egilric]

The Moria expansion was the best thing to ever happen to this game. It was polished, with loads to do - I enjoyed the raids and instances. During Moria the game was full of people looking for groups, gearing up and having loads of fun. For me, Moria shines far and above anything else that has been released.

Yeah, it was underground, dark and claustrophobic. They captured it perfectly

Agree entirely.

Moria is the very best MMO Expac I have played.

All The Best

[GREENFROST]

The Moria expansion was the best thing to ever happen to this game. It was polished, with loads to do - I enjoyed the raids and instances. During Moria the game was full of people looking for groups, gearing up and having loads of fun. For me, Moria shines far and above anything else that has been released.

Yeah, it was underground, dark and claustrophobic. They captured it perfectly

No doubt the designer’s desired effect, and once you came out on the other side (“by my beard it’s the sun, Ahhh…my eyes)

[GREENFROST]

Are you on a very quiet server? Eldar's channels are full of kin adverts, and the best way is to look in kin forums at their recruiting notices there.

I disagree Moria's rep grind was 'impossible'. It's one of the easiest in the game, as you have loads of quests and drop items. Not like regions with a handful of quests, no drops and just a daily grind of 4 +300 boosts.

I feel a lot of the areas that 'LOTRO went wrong' were problems that affect the whole MMO market. LOTRO isn't unique and special in its struggle to attract players (the old MMO crowd of raiders and grinders have grown up, but not been replaced by a new crop of youngsters. They play differently) and create the content that the new players want to see (very easy, very short, low effort, high reward.) They went FTP because paid games died out. They stopped making raids because players didn't play them. They stopped making group content because players refused to group (see the above complaints about people unable to find groups for fellowship quests.) They had to create a store, so they made problems - lengthy rep grinds - and sold the solutions.

A few years ago I might have whinged "bad, naughty Turbine" but the truth is, every MMO I've gone to since has had the same issues. Forced to go FTP because no one paid. Forced to drop raids because no one played. Cut the challenge because people left in droves. MMOs as a whole just aren't the powerhouse they once were. It's the age of Candy Crush, not WoW. People want Minecraft and stuff, not to be funnelled down an RPG storyline. I think LOTRO would have drained money and been shut down long ago if they'd stuck to the idea of pleasing a small portion of dedicated fans rather than generating money by attracting the casuals.

The movie industry, television, music, it's all the same really. They make what sells. Try something different and no one sees it, no one buys it, no one listens. Make the same. Make it cheap. Put the same actors in it so people don't get too startled. Base it on a familiar story. Make a sequel. Put the actors in different costumes and tell the story again in a different era. The indie developers might thrive, but only on the small scale. Mass market means more of the same. Superhero sequels, shape-matching games and cash shop MMOs.

Looking at it through those pessimistic eyes, LOTRO's done a great job of keeping afloat while keeping most of its integrity. It could have been a lot worse.

LOTRO isn't unique and special in its struggle to attract players (the old MMO crowd of raiders and grinders have grown up, but not been replaced by a new crop of youngsters. They play differently) and create the content that the new players want to see (very easy, very short, low effort, high reward.)

Turbine has fell or is falling prey to the “entitlement generation” (those who don’t want to do much but want everything), I can see that

[GREENFROST]

In the Executive producer letter (17 Dec 2013) decision was made to
“Take a break from expansions”
We’ve heard a lot of you suggest we take a break from the annual expansion cycle, and we agree! We’d like to take the time to revisit some older systems, add more region content, and just generally have more Middle-earth to explore throughout the year. When the Players Council last visited, we asked them what they thought of a year that focused on more content and more opportunities to refine and improve existing systems. They echoed the sentiment we’d heard from many of you and were unanimous in their support. They were also very passionate on one point; VIPs should get this new content for free. (Again, we agree!)
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-Ahead-to-2014

now
Was taking a break in the “annual expansion cycle” a good or bad path move?

Wanting to implement “more content faster” is fine if it can be done well but if it can’t I would think it wouldn’t really be good to introduce more content more rapid pace

[Radbug]

Refine and improve existing systems...

Or just add a bunch more.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

LOTRO isn't unique and special in its struggle to attract players (the old MMO crowd of raiders and grinders have grown up, but not been replaced by a new crop of youngsters. They play differently) and create the content that the new players want to see (very easy, very short, low effort, high reward.)

Turbine has fell or is falling prey to the “entitlement generation” (those who don’t want to do much but want everything), I can see that

Blizzard have got 10m subscribers back (up from 6.5) with their latest expac for WoW. If the content is compelling then people will pay to play it.

[Radbug]

Blizzard have got 10m subscribers back (up from 6.5) with their latest expac for WoW. If the content is compelling then people will pay to play it.

And that expac has raids.