An end to ghost town zone design (EG: TC & Lebennin)

[groucho42]

Yes, it's nice to have areas where it's an incentive to fellow. However, entire areas such as Tarlang's Crown and Lbennin that require it to accomplish much are counterproductive. The TC grind was annoying and most have stopped going there. I'm still trying to get my last toon through the bank dailies and only got one through the 25 needed for the deed. And since that's needed for the meta-deed, it's a real pain.

Meanwhile, I know a number of people who won't go to Lebennin because mobs are packed far too tightly for most people's patience even just doing the initial quests. It's too much grind for too little benefit.

However, the problems now, when those areas are level cap, is only minor compared to what will happen once this year's expansion comes out and there's new cap. New players and existing players with new toons will find the areas really unused and avoided. Fellowships will be mostly impossible. Something will have to change in those areas to make them usable.

I enjoy the fact that there are more options for folks to do fellowships, especially finally more mounted ones. But riding in circles for 10 minutes to kill one roving threat isn't exactly exciting. Two things are needed:
1) Making the experiences interesting rather than boring
2) Making things go faster and more fun with fellowships, but fellowing not being a requirement for landscape deeds.

[NaktiesKarys]

The problem is not rewards. There was an option for Limligh Gorge v.2.0.
We have Limlight Gorge. We have quests there. We have really big monsters and fellowship. We had entire faction of lazy "heroes" to build Kindred with.
All that was needed - was to copy Limlight Gorge to be difficult, yet doable area. Developers tried to create death zone, they got death zone and - surprise - negative feedback.
All they needed was to clone Limlight Gorge with new enemies, leaving same philosophy. It was not done and we see the results.
I could see no solution for TC. Set bigger rewards? Make yet another RNG? It won't attract those who were decided never to enter death zone again. Those who wanted to go there, are fighting there. Those who do not want to go ther,e are not there.

[Leixy]

the Haradhrim are concentrating their attack on Lebennin and Pelargir, it makes sense for there to be a lot of mobs there. It is also very easy to outrun them on warsteed, and turbine made the roads mostly clear of mob aggro. The only players who die in Lebennin, are those who either pull 3 Half-Trolls (mez spam every 5 seconds, lol), those who went AFK, or those who never build a war-steed bridle in their life.

tarlang crown is designed for 6 man casual groups, it is very easy to do with any pug who is willing to listen to leader instructions. in fact, in my experience the larger the group, the more frustrating the outcome in TC. 6 is perfect.

We have been begging turbine for some harder landscape areas for years, and they finally obliged. If you've been solo'ing all the time, or not paying attention to class skills, time to learn some. Not being mean, just pointing it out.

TC and Lebennin are still far easier than Limlight Gorge, or Foundations of Stone back before they were nerfed.

[Coruven]

Lebnin is a "death zone"? I ran my squishy mini through there without dying too much. I even finished all the deeds for Central Gondor. If I can do it, anyone should be able to.

[NonHyperHamster]

I don't really see a problem here. I love TC and never have a problem with finding a 6-12 man group for that area. From what I gather lot of folks seem to have enjoyed it. As for Lebennin, it's just a single zone with tad more challenge, something this game was in desperate need of.

EDIT: I agree though, that the grindiness of the new zones could and should be reduced.

[djheydt]

From my side of the table:

Whh and I duo anything we can't solo; we also duo
whatever's new (currently, Centrel Gondor).

We didn't have a problem with Lebennin. With Limlight
Gorge, we had to wait for a couple of level cap increases
(and for our characters to attain those level caps) before
we could do it. We took one look at the number of tough
mobs in Tarlang's Crown and said "Nope, not this year,
not next year either; we'll wait till we can handle this."
After attempting the drakes 'n' things on Tol Aduial, we
said the same thing. We have many lower-level alts
doing lower-level things; we don't lack for opportunities
to play. But things intended for large tough fellowships,
we can't do till they become what players with large kinships
would consider laughably easy. That's life on Middle-earth.

[groucho42]

The only thing difficult in LLG was figuring out which ore to mine. It was duo/trio after the intro quests. TC is not that way.

Nakties, I agree the problem isn't rewards. When you can buy what you want at the store, that doesn't matter. Rather, it's the density of mobs makes things annoying -- It's not a death zone, just very annoying.

For instance, it'd be nice to kill mounted hadarim to work on the deed. However, I'll bet none of you one the thread do that. You try to avoid the scouts and run through the non-ranged ones, getting all your Haderrim for the deed in the camps. Why? Because the density means if you try to kill mounted you'll get 4-5 mounted, one will dismount you and then they'll kill you. Yes, you can ride through the area to get quests done, but that's an overly simplistic look at it.

Also, a nit: Half-trolls should have a lower deed threshold than the non-sig mobs.

[KM3161]

My Champ has no problems with the mounted Haradrim Riders in Lebennin, I ride thru and whatever attacks i simply wipe out, 4-5 at a time is fine for my champ/heavy steed. But not everyone is like that and I can see the the riders being very annoying to some.Here's a tip that might help if you get overwhelmed by them---while escorting a friend sightseeing who was a level 60ish hunter with no warsteed this is what i had her do since she aggroed everything in sight---once the riders are after you ride straight south INTO the river as fast as you can. When the riders follow you into the river they automatically dismount and then you can simply turn and fight them if you want or keep swimming until they lose aggro and give up the chase. Dismounted the riders are very squishy, you then can fight them on foot or let them lose aggro and you then can return to the shore. Having my friend ride into the river dismounted the Haradrim who were chasing her and i slaughtered them all and she got all the way to Pelargir.

just a tip that can help in some situations if you are overwhelmed by them

[groucho42]

My Champ has no problems with the mounted Haradrim Riders in Lebennin, I ride thru and whatever attacks i simply wipe out, 4-5 at a time is fine for my champ/heavy steed. But not everyone is like that

Yes, my champ has a heal that helps. Not so my other toons.

Meanwhile the one everyone else has ignored: Roving mechanics. There are some things good about knowing each rover and what attacks and buffs they have, but the combination of morale and buffs make the fights far to repetitive and long. Challenging is one thing, boring is quite another.

[KM3161]

Meanwhile the one everyone else has ignored: Roving mechanics. There are some things good about knowing each rover and what attacks and buffs they have, but the combination of morale and buffs make the fights far to repetitive and long. Challenging is one thing, boring is quite another.

I agree about the roving threats, the 1st time i ran into them was fun,like WTH is this, so dismount-charge-attack-die, go back and actually figure the strategy for each one, fighting on foot or mounted, which skills,buffs they have, how to counter them etc...the challenge was fun but now they are long boring repetitive fights for virtually no reward and unless someone is calling for help i pretty much ignore them now.

and of course there is still all the Haradrim riders to deal with, especially the mounted flying riders





i actually fought these guys while they were flying thru the air. They died up there too

[Wolfhelm]

Next time someone asks for flying mounts in the suggestion forum just redirect them here

[Banaticus]

the problems now, when those areas are level cap, is only minor compared to what will happen once this year's expansion comes out and there's new cap. New players and existing players with new toons will find the areas really unused and avoided.

Super pumped level 100 characters duo or solo Tarlang's Crown. Come back at level 110 and most everyone will be able to solo it albeit with some small measure of difficulty depending on how smart characters are about wandering mobs and how mobs are linked (which mobs are linked).

I've seen it being run fairly often on Landroval. Maybe not every night, but at least 2-3 times a week if not once at some point in the night. My kin runs it too.