consolidated brainstorming: ways to make grouping/old instances fun for all, at all levels.

[Calta]

How to get people to play together and do more raids/older instances
I have some suggestions on this. None of which involve new raids/instances and which would require few dollars and dev time compared to that or making new mini games.

In no particular order:

1. Fix loot itemisation, especially in tier 2 and tier 2 cm:
Some one on Laurelin recently got 1 Crystal, 1 First Age symbol, and 1 essence removal scroll from 1 BB box. He announced in world he'd 'won the jackpot.' Compare this with the 1 bounty and 1 tier 6 relic that drops for most of us from tier2CM chests. It's just sad.

2. Give class points for completing the raid deeds and or the skirmish meta-deeds.

3. Give rewards for completing instance clusters, in addition to the mount and TP for the deed:
some suggestons

Give cosmetic housing and pet items for completing an entire instance cluster on tier 1.
Give rarer ones and starlit crystal and essence removal scroll for completing the same on tier 2.
Give a non bound first age symbol and a bound to account Crystal of remembrance in addition, for completing the cluster on T2CM. I'd love the horse of many colours but who's going to run those instances when the older raiders have done it and the newer ones don't know where to start?
Bound to account loot means people might run older clusters for their alts without having the effect of flooding the AH with CoR's and essence removal scrolls.

3. Fix bugs in instances and raids
Draigoch, the invisible chicken, tier 3 relics in level 100 tier 2 loot boxes

4. Fix instance finder:
Add the decent bonuses back to the instance finder (and let it be a true instance finder. Although that may be too hard.) At least when there were bonuses people used it and filled empty places from GLFF so non kin players got a chance to join..

5. An in game notice board/sign up sheet for forthcoming T1 raids and training runs would be nice too.
Most raid kins have gone, so the guild-launch sign ups are nearly dead. Many of us would log in specifically if we knew there was something to do but aren't confident enough to lead a group. Many of us have ./world off. Most peeps don't use the forums. But a noticeboard when arriving in DA saying Smaug training runs 12 noon gmt -sign here. Or on in Bree saying GB runs level 20 6pm EST, sign here, would get some response imo. Helps non EST US and non GMT Euro players get together at a convenient time, too. Would need to be moderated but if the players gave 4 weeks notice, then perhaps the in game GMs could post it? Or nominated raid leaders? Or kin officers? (with penalties for abuse, of course.) Not sure how much work this 'in-game whiteboard' would involve-perhaps a project for an intern?

6. Give some kind of in game recognition to regular raid leaders.
A special title or something to thank them for their time and patience. Could apply to Ettens too. Let players nominate them though an in game mail to an employee or the CM, if an in game mechanic is too hard to implement. Announce it on each server and in server forums.

7. Raid (instance?) of the fortnight/month.
Drop something extra special (gold armour, champs teal might crossbow, gold recipe, unwelcome mat, etc.) as well as symbols in one raid or even group instance for a fortnight/month.
Like the first ages did in tier 1 and skraids, that were farmed for a month, but do it intentionally, with drop rate equivalent to the current tier 2, and rotate it through the capped raids... Players chase shinies.

8. Do this for the non scaled instance of the month, ie 12 over a year.
As above but make the extra drop the level of the non scaled instance. Encourage the tortoise buyers and the on-levelers to try the instances as they were intended.

9. Provide via T1 raids the opportunity to get hold of teal essence armour and teal essences as loot drops.
I'm not a fan of dailies and as much as U14/U15 are an improvement over RoR, U11, HD and U13, it puts too much reliance on dailies and BBs as the means for gear progression.

10. Add purple essences to the skirmish barterers
Allows people to kit themselves out in purple essence gear for smallish amounts of marks and meds. This should provide sufficient aggregate item level to access T1.

11. Provide crafters with lvl 100 armour sets and jewellery
Purple and teal as means to enter and partake in T1 raids. Full teal crafted sets will be at the top end of the requirements for T1 and for skilled players a foot up into T2. Encourages guilded crafters to keep logging in.

12. Make T1 raiding FUN.
Provide rewards / titles for kin only achievements, have unique cosmetic drops that are only from T1 or put in there more deeds and virtues to be obtained. Don't make T1 seem the poor man's choice.

13. Reduce LI grinding for newer players:
The shard grind is unappealing to say the least. For long term players it's an irrelevance as they have tens of thousands. Increase the rng shard drop rate when combining/deconstructing, especially for low level LIs. Do same for XP 'pills'. Allow 'combine all' for all relics at all levels. Allow xp runes to be consolidated. Increase the shard/pill drop rate from deconning crafted relics substantially. This will encourage crafters to get guilded-little else does at the moment-and allow newer players to get titles and scrolls in game more readily at lower levels, rather than grinding TP to go to the store.


Other ideas I'm not sure about:

Locks:
You'll notice I left out locks. I'm in two minds about locks: for players with one main or limited playtimes they are a pain. Rotating the shinies might have a similar effect?

Character aggregate level:
Show the char's aggregate item level somewhere on the character's stats. We've got item levels on gear but nothing on the character to show what their aggregate ilvl value is.

LI levels tip:
work out the appropriate item level for LIs based upon their completeness / level of relics and legacy levels. People should need to know the extent to which they need to work on their LIs in order to do T2.

[jason12323]

Some good idea's but some of the reward ones from completing deeds is not a good idea in my opinion
Yeh fix the bugs heard dragoich is still bugged for like 3 years >.<
But they should fix bugs in general still alot old ones did moria instances today and some bosses just bugged on me and i had to restart all over again...
They are just releasing alot of new content without fixing old stuff and they only make more bugs that scare people away.
And Essence Armour From raids wont get added they earn money with daillies because of people that keep buying mithril coins to reset them.
Better loot ofcourse FA's and such should be T2C only or something like that.

We all want better loot and instances but yeh they won't do anything about it is just ridiculious that FA's are worth 100g now on brandy they should be a 1000g atleast even some stupid useless pets sell for more t2c Should only drop gold items not and BBs shouldn't give any gold items BBs are to easy and you can go afk until the side quest starts. And the merit system is just worse you can get full golden jewels without even hitting a single button on keyboard :/
And the only way that they are gonna make instances fun again is to add some new ones are scale old instances and atleast at some tactic to them.
They could make it so you need a all classes to complete a raid for example a hunter needs to use heart seeker so you can kill or boss or a LM that needs to use the armour debuff because the boss has high mits and doesn't take any damage without the debuff the raids that we got now are still easy and just require you to kill mobs and thats all no real tactic needed im also not saying that leaders need to explain for 30 minutes but 5 minutes atleast maybe right now when leading t2c raids you can probably explain the entire run under 2 minutes most of the instance you are killing trash mobs and you dont need any tactic. But yeh we can't start crying for new raids for 3 years but we won't get new ones unfortunatly only more AFK battles and because of that they wont change the old school instances i think -_- Just think turbine is missing out on some money without making new Instances and they can have alot of places where they could make them. Instances are just trash in general now no good loot, no new ones but oh well nothing we can do about it.

[infinitewhimsy]

Give these instances the same type of loot Big Battles give (more on T2, T2CM...obviously) until you can implement a comprehensive loot system reform. Done.

[Calta]

Give these instances the same type of loot Big Battles give (more on T2, T2CM...obviously) until you can implement a comprehensive loot system reform. Done.

May sort cap and encourage some farming I agree, but it doesn't solve the problem of getting gear at lower levels to encourage people to do them on level though. Nor experience them where the mechanics still apply-in the non scaling ones. Nor does it prevent the same instance farming, at cap, like Sambrog.

My ideas were to try to encourage variety at all levels and to encourage use of older non scaled content as people played through the game, rather than just powering through them for the deeds at cap and because I want that horse from ToO on at least one character! .And to get people to run a variety of scaled instances at cap, because I'm bored with the same wings on OD

[infinitewhimsy]

Ah that's true, I gave no consideration to people leveling. And Sambrog farm should give less currency than longer/more difficult stuff or something...This a massive pitfall.

But that's just it, the more nuanced the proposed loot system, the less plausible.

Maybe have these instances reward their own currency that scales that can be bartered for rewards that also scale. And I don't mean Marks/Meds!

[mjk47]

12. Make T1 raiding FUN.

I'm guessing that the definitions of "FUN" across the whole community are so wide as to make this unachievable as specified.

One person's fun is another person's tedious waste of time!

I applaud your motives, but anything that sets out to make something "fun for all" is going to have to scale back its aims if it is to succeed.

[Calta]

I'm guessing that the definitions of "FUN" across the whole community are so wide as to make this unachievable as specified.

One person's fun is another person's tedious waste of time!

I applaud your motives, but anything that sets out to make something "fun for all" is going to have to scale back its aims if it is to succeed.

I would have thought saying 'fun for all those who choose to participate' was a little redundant. However....since you seem to want an explicit definition of my aims, that is what I intended. Clearly, there will always be some members of the community for whom playing in groups, let alone participating in raids, is an anathema. This post is not intended for them; therefore they do not need to be concerned with its content, or to participate in any ensuing discussion.

As for those who do wish to enjoy tier 1 raiding at any level, I look forward to hearing what their ideas of fun are.
I hope that is clearer.

[Vilan]

You can't solve Sambrog farms by making Sambrog harder, people will just move to the next easiest instance to farm. So I think a simple-ish solution would be to have weekly loot locks on each instance. That way you are encouraged to play many different instances instead of just farming one. Just loot locks... you can run it as often as you want if you want to help kinnies or whatever, you just don't get the big shinies.

[Maxal]

I have always voted for locks to return. Two reasons:

Folks will play more instances / raids

You can scale the rewards better since they only have one chance at that loot each week.

I still remember BoE T1, 2 seals was crazy low rewards. But after completing a few times you could finish it in 10 minutes. So 2 seals for 10 minutes of simple work, about right. But if it would have been a weekly lock, then I think you would have received about 20 each time you finished. They could have added better loot to the boxes also.

[Olebenny]

There are a lot of points that I agree with but some that I do not.

1. I absolutely agree that loots needs to be improved upon. If nothing else can we get more marks/medallion/seals? How hard is that? Doesn't seem like it would take a dev more than a few mere moments to change the amount of marks/meds/seals awarded from T2 and T2C raid. (I am not a dev though so I do not know for sure.)

2. I do not agree with this one because I think that a lot of soloers will get extremely pissed that raiders are getting stuff that soloers can not. Do I like the idea? Yes. Do I think it will be a good idea to implement into the game? No

3. I like this but think there is a better solution. Make seals worth while again. Then, people who really enjoy the In Their Absence Raids but don't like the Erebor raids can still get Erebor housing items.

4/5. I do not care for these. If they were put into the game I would not mind but if they weren't doesn't matter to me either.

6. Absolutely love this idea. Don't know how it would be implemented though.

7. T1 should never have the same loot as T2 raids. If a T2 raid has tier 10 relics (which they really should) then T1 raids should have tier 5-6 relics. T2 drops FA's, T1 drops SA's.

8. Interesting idea. I'm in support but probably would not use it

9. Replace dailies with T1 raids? Maybe, if the drop rates werent to high and the pieces to good. End game armour belongs in T2 raids, T1 should give you armour that can suffice through T2 raids.

10/11/12. I do not care for these either. Does not matter to me if implemented or not.

13. Any improvements to eliminate the LI grind I am 100% in favor of.

Locks. I do and do not like the idea of locks. They help force me to deed and improve other aspects of my character besides just raiding which is good but they prevent me from doing the thing I really want to do which is raid.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

9. Replace dailies with T1 raids? Maybe, if the drop rates werent to high and the pieces to good. End game armour belongs in T2 raids, T1 should give you armour that can suffice through T2 raids.

Just on this point - right now the current "gear progression" in the game is to farm the DA dailies and our quests / instances in order to obtain slotted teal armour & essences in order to then run T2C content. Therefore as T1 raids should be the content to progress onto T2/T2C, there is no reason why T1 should not be a means to obtain the currencies to barter for teal DA armour & essences and drop other Ilvl 192 gear. Of course T2C should be about content completion and access to FA symbols and gold items.

If T1 drops anything less than this then no one will bother with it, which is why right now in the game T1 is a virtual graveyard.

[NaktiesKarys]

So many thoughts, so many words - I do get lost between them.
Yes, I am mostly soloer. If there is solo content - good, it's for me. If there is forced fellowship content - will try to outlevel and do. If there is content I cannot outlevel and must do in group - I avoid (like I avoid all Gondor). Not sure if I may be considered to be...a target...of this storming.
Yet my own 2 cents.
*Older instance rewards should be re-written and players should be offered essence armour, starting from level when essences start to drop. Should be positive for non-scaling instances
*Get rid off cursed RNG. If I go to instance for loot, I want to fight army of Enemy and not two armies (Enemy + RNG) at once
*Maybe - introduce experience system where the more the group, the bigger reward. Possible example about killing on-level mob:
1 player - 100 xp
2 players - 110 xp
4 players - 150 xp
6 players - 200 xp
12 players - 250 xp
(numbers just represent idea:the more the groyup, the more xp). Idea of "more xp when in group" worked perfectly in one mmorpg I have played. Could work in Lotro. If this idea is too complex - ok, introduce more simple deal: raids give +NN % rewards, be it money, reputation, LI xp or simple xp.
/end of my two cents.

[Calta]

Thanks for your positive contributions so far.

Some comments (won't multi quote because the post will get too long).

Loot and XP
These do create incentives for running older content. Agree with Nakties that XP is a good reward for levellers doing group content-the instance finder has a mechanic for this-it needs to be tweaked. Perhaps so on levels get even better xp for on level to plus 4. Higher level XP runes should also be dropped from lower instances. This has no effect on the economy but makes it much less grindy for levelling LIs as newer characters/players progress.

As they have introduced roving threats and more are to come (an idea several of us proposed long ago-thanks for listening Devs!) Nakties idea for more XP the more in the group when attacking them in lower level regions could work. Capped players don't need as many in the group and don't need the XP so the reward also should take them into account-lootboxes, high end shards, or even a mithril? That idea needs some work. Maybe Warhorse dyes and unique cosmetics.

Seals
Making seals relevant to gain gear/essences/essence removal scrolls seems like a good idea and could be simpler. Although I still like the idea of fun fluff rewards added to tier 1s.

Class points
As they are available (required) from doing BBs I don't think this would be a step too far to allow those of us who loathe BBs to get them through an alternative source like completing all clusters-that takes some serious work. If they dropped from skirmish meta deeds they are available to soloers, I think. Aren't all lieuts in the solo skirms? I could be wrong about this-I'm relatively new to skirmishing but I thought this was a way for people to gain class points through solo skirming from level 20-rather than having to do all quests in older regions or through BBs.

Raid Locks
Raid locks are a pita for people who have non US playtimes. Everyone already has locks when we can play downunder and in east asia, if the other players/kinnies raid when locks open on a Thursday. So unless raid night is after 10pm EST on a friday, so we can play from 1pm on sat eastern Aus time, we get locked out... This is one reason I hate them.
I maybe wrong about this but-
I think locks gate impulse pugs: ie experienced raid leader feels like taking people through a tier 1 and can't because of locks. (There are workarounds but that takes the point of locks away-and no reward for those with locks means they have no incentive to teach others.)

Rotating the loot and making it match difficulty -like 1 bounty and relic from sambrog and something really shiny from the hard wings of OD BG Fornost shadow, rather than the other way round would solve the problem (not entirely serious but you get the idea)

Alternative path to gain essence armour through tier 1 grouping not just the dailies
Couldn't agree more.

Keep up the positive discussion folks.
Many of these ideas are implementable without requiring huge time and money investment, I think, so I hope the PC and devs can take some on board

[Nosdracir]

I like problem solving. Just saying that to explain why I'm responding to this even though I don't raid. I just enjoy trying to fix things.

7. Raid (instance?) of the fortnight/month.
Drop something extra special (gold armour, champs teal might crossbow, gold recipe, unwelcome mat, etc.) as well as symbols in one raid or even group instance for a fortnight/month.
Like the first ages did in tier 1 and skraids, that were farmed for a month, but do it intentionally, with drop rate equivalent to the current tier 2, and rotate it through the capped raids... Players chase shinies.

This idea seems to have a lot of potential. It gives players a nice shiney to chase across all the raids/group instances so they don't stick with Sammy runs forever.

- Instead of a specific item, make it a lootbox with a choice of 5-10 items.
- Sometimes the lootbos can contain one or more sub-lootboxes, like 4 gold armor boxes - Might, Agility, Will, and Beorning.
- Come up with 1-3 new cosmetics and put one of them in the lootbox
- Move the shiney to a different raid roughly fortnightly, maybe the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. 24 changes per year. Every 2 weeks we'd have to figure out where it moved to.

Even if Turbine merely sets up a fixed fortnightly rotation for this it would create a constantly changing "best raid" over the course of a year.

[djheydt]

I'm guessing that the definitions of "FUN" across the whole community are so wide as to make this unachievable as specified.

One person's fun is another person's tedious waste of time!

Or downright impossibility.

I applaud your motives, but anything that sets out to make something "fun for all" is going to have to scale back its aims if it is to succeed.

/cheers, caffeine, and doughnuts

[Calta]

I like problem solving. Just saying that to explain why I'm responding to this even though I don't raid. I just enjoy trying to fix things.



This idea seems to have a lot of potential. It gives players a nice shiney to chase across all the raids/group instances so they don't stick with Sammy runs forever.

- Instead of a specific item, make it a lootbox with a choice of 5-10 items.
- Sometimes the lootbos can contain one or more sub-lootboxes, like 4 gold armor boxes - Might, Agility, Will, and Beorning.
- Come up with 1-3 new cosmetics and put one of them in the lootbox
- Move the shiney to a different raid roughly fortnightly, maybe the 1st and 3rd Thursday of each month. 24 changes per year. Every 2 weeks we'd have to figure out where it moved to.

Even if Turbine merely sets up a fixed fortnightly rotation for this it would create a constantly changing "best raid" over the course of a year.

Thanks. That idea would be even better than my suggestion. I'd like this extended to 6 person and 3 person groups as well.


DJHeydt. I'm surprised you feel it necessary to join in mjk47's condescending and pedantic derailing attempts. Particularly after the extensive assistance I provided in the minstrel thread. (Most of which I learned from joining groups and playing with others.) I feel a bit sad and disappointed. I will reiterate my response to him.

I would have thought saying 'fun for all those who choose to participate' was a little redundant. However....since you seem to want an explicit definition of my aims, that is what I intended. Clearly, there will always be some members of the community for whom playing in groups, let alone participating in raids, is an anathema. This post is not intended for them; therefore they do not need to be concerned with its content, or to participate in any ensuing discussion.

As for those who do wish to enjoy tier 1 raiding at any level, I look forward to hearing what their ideas of fun are.

This thread is for people like Nosdracir with something positive to contribute, whether they raid, group, or solo. For once, I'd like to have a civil discussion amongst people who want to do this and contribute ideas on what they'd find fun or what they think would improve things to do with grouping and raiding, without costing a lot of money. Please continue throwing ideas on the whiteboard

[cdq1958]

How to get people to play together and do more raids/older instances
I have some suggestions on this. None of which involve new raids/instances and which would require few dollars and dev time compared to that or making new mini games.

In no particular order:

1. Fix loot itemisation, especially in tier 2 and tier 2 cm:
Some one on Laurelin recently got 1 Crystal, 1 First Age symbol, and 1 essence removal scroll from 1 BB box. He announced in world he'd 'won the jackpot.' Compare this with the 1 bounty and 1 tier 6 relic that drops for most of us from tier2CM chests. It's just sad.

2. Give class points for completing the raid deeds and or the skirmish meta-deeds.

3. Give rewards for completing instance clusters, in addition to the mount and TP for the deed:
some suggestons

Give cosmetic housing and pet items for completing an entire instance cluster on tier 1.
Give rarer ones and starlit crystal and essence removal scroll for completing the same on tier 2.
Give a non bound first age symbol and a bound to account Crystal of remembrance in addition, for completing the cluster on T2CM. I'd love the horse of many colours but who's going to run those instances when the older raiders have done it and the newer ones don't know where to start?
Bound to account loot means people might run older clusters for their alts without having the effect of flooding the AH with CoR's and essence removal scrolls.

3. Fix bugs in instances and raids
Draigoch, the invisible chicken, tier 3 relics in level 100 tier 2 loot boxes

4. Fix instance finder:
Add the decent bonuses back to the instance finder (and let it be a true instance finder. Although that may be too hard.) At least when there were bonuses people used it and filled empty places from GLFF so non kin players got a chance to join..

5. An in game notice board/sign up sheet for forthcoming T1 raids and training runs would be nice too.
Most raid kins have gone, so the guild-launch sign ups are nearly dead. Many of us would log in specifically if we knew there was something to do but aren't confident enough to lead a group. Many of us have ./world off. Most peeps don't use the forums. But a noticeboard when arriving in DA saying Smaug training runs 12 noon gmt -sign here. Or on in Bree saying GB runs level 20 6pm EST, sign here, would get some response imo. Helps non EST US and non GMT Euro players get together at a convenient time, too. Would need to be moderated but if the players gave 4 weeks notice, then perhaps the in game GMs could post it? Or nominated raid leaders? Or kin officers? (with penalties for abuse, of course.) Not sure how much work this 'in-game whiteboard' would involve-perhaps a project for an intern?

6. Give some kind of in game recognition to regular raid leaders.
A special title or something to thank them for their time and patience. Could apply to Ettens too. Let players nominate them though an in game mail to an employee or the CM, if an in game mechanic is too hard to implement. Announce it on each server and in server forums.

7. Raid (instance?) of the fortnight/month.
Drop something extra special (gold armour, champs teal might crossbow, gold recipe, unwelcome mat, etc.) as well as symbols in one raid or even group instance for a fortnight/month.
Like the first ages did in tier 1 and skraids, that were farmed for a month, but do it intentionally, with drop rate equivalent to the current tier 2, and rotate it through the capped raids... Players chase shinies.

8. Do this for the non scaled instance of the month, ie 12 over a year.
As above but make the extra drop the level of the non scaled instance. Encourage the tortoise buyers and the on-levelers to try the instances as they were intended.

9. Provide via T1 raids the opportunity to get hold of teal essence armour and teal essences as loot drops.
I'm not a fan of dailies and as much as U14/U15 are an improvement over RoR, U11, HD and U13, it puts too much reliance on dailies and BBs as the means for gear progression.

10. Add purple essences to the skirmish barterers
Allows people to kit themselves out in purple essence gear for smallish amounts of marks and meds. This should provide sufficient aggregate item level to access T1.

11. Provide crafters with lvl 100 armour sets and jewellery
Purple and teal as means to enter and partake in T1 raids. Full teal crafted sets will be at the top end of the requirements for T1 and for skilled players a foot up into T2. Encourages guilded crafters to keep logging in.

12. Make T1 raiding FUN.
Provide rewards / titles for kin only achievements, have unique cosmetic drops that are only from T1 or put in there more deeds and virtues to be obtained. Don't make T1 seem the poor man's choice.

13. Reduce LI grinding for newer players:
The shard grind is unappealing to say the least. For long term players it's an irrelevance as they have tens of thousands. Increase the rng shard drop rate when combining/deconstructing, especially for low level LIs. Do same for XP 'pills'. Allow 'combine all' for all relics at all levels. Allow xp runes to be consolidated. Increase the shard/pill drop rate from deconning crafted relics substantially. This will encourage crafters to get guilded-little else does at the moment-and allow newer players to get titles and scrolls in game more readily at lower levels, rather than grinding TP to go to the store.


Other ideas I'm not sure about:

Locks:
You'll notice I left out locks. I'm in two minds about locks: for players with one main or limited playtimes they are a pain. Rotating the shinies might have a similar effect?

Character aggregate level:
Show the char's aggregate item level somewhere on the character's stats. We've got item levels on gear but nothing on the character to show what their aggregate ilvl value is.

LI levels tip:
work out the appropriate item level for LIs based upon their completeness / level of relics and legacy levels. People should need to know the extent to which they need to work on their LIs in order to do T2.

1. Use both paths for loot. That 'jackpot' announcement is an incentive, but since you don't know what everyone else on the server got from BBs, you don't know that most of them got what your raid got. They got some Marks and medallions, and maybe some relics.

2. That's an excellent idea there, Calta.

3. I am indifferent here, so your suggestions would not provide an incentive for me. Others, of course, will have a different opinion.

4. Fix bugs, well yes; but not all bugs are going to be economical to fix. If Draig was put on the 'to be scaled' list and actually was scaled, then some of the bugs would or could be addressed.

5. Putting the incentives back into the Instance Finder, well, I'm not sure that would matter much. I'm indifferent here. On the other hand, if other things got fixed first, such as player scaling up or down, instance scaling, and a way to use the BR copy function to allow cross server play; then I think having the incentives return would be useful.

6. That's another excellent idea, Calta; but I wonder how well such a player controlled 'Bounty Board' would work, particularly if/when people find a way to exploit it adversely.

7. Raid leader titles is also a wonderful idea, and one that could be implemented using current tech.

8. This one has been done before and as I recall was more trouble than it was worth. Your idea has a twist to it that might be worth it; but I'd say go for quarterly 'seasons' and have it for clusters rather than single FoTM instances.

9. This one seems even more problematic to implement than the preceding one.

10. I prefer the current daily system to what you propose; but I would not fuss if special cyans and golds with instance/raid specific set bonuses were added.

11. I think this will happen in a future update.

12. I fully support this and am hoping that more of the holes in the current crafting system get filled.

13. Not possible, in a way. For me, there is nothing special about team play, whether in heroic instances or not. I've done more than enough of those over a decade's time. Oh well. Things that would make these more fun for me will not necessarily make them more fun for others, and vice-versa.

14. Well, time and effort does count for something, correct? Besides, like fun, grinding is subjective. LIs have never been a grind for me. On the other hand, the system does need improvements. We shall see if 'imbuing' becomes an improvement.

15. Locks, well raid locks lock people out. BTDT. I hate that. Loot locks, yes to those, but maybe not weekly locks. Maybe 48 hour, 72 hour, or bi-weekly (Monday/Thursday) loot locks.

16. Flesh out that idea, Calta; for I see no benefit from the short statement you made.

17. I have to noodle over that one. I see benefits and I see detriments.

[Aedfrith]

You can't solve Sambrog farms by making Sambrog harder, people will just move to the next easiest instance to farm. So I think a simple-ish solution would be to have weekly loot locks on each instance. That way you are encouraged to play many different instances instead of just farming one. Just loot locks... you can run it as often as you want if you want to help kinnies or whatever, you just don't get the big shinies.

Exactly. Very similar to a previous suggestion of mine - not only loot locks but mark/med rewards for a given instance, reset daily.