what happened??

[greatlord365]

Hi,

Back 5-6 years ago when I started playing LOTRO the game was hard. My first character to be made on LOTRO was a dwarf champ and I remember marching into Silver Deep Mine for the first time and dying. The little creatures would attack you and If you had no idea what you were doing like myself you would die. Simple as that. I died 3 times in there before I found out how to use my few skills at the time to defend myself. I had an absolute blast with that. It was the most fun I think I have ever had in this game. I was challenged to figure out either A: How to sneak around the mine without getting attacked ( which failed on my second attempt to enter the mine) or B: Figure out what the **** those square little buttons did at the bottom of my screen. I know Silver Deep Mine is a starting area but my point behind all this is that its simply too easy now. I started a new dwarf champ yesterday just to see how it is now vs then and when I got into Silver Deep Mine. Nothing attacked me. Everything was yellow

I guess with all that said, my point is this. The game is simply walk around and press one button here and one button there now days. I remember back a few years ago when you had to stand on the trail just to half way stay alive. That you had to eat food and plan your journey very well or you would get into trouble. I remember when I had to call up at least one other person from my kinship to help me with a small fellowship quest because It was just that challenging. I don't know what happened but Its sad to walk around not paying attention at all and still be ok. Its said that any one mob at any level should be one shot by a character of the same level. It just doesn't make sense and It doesn't keep things interesting anymore. I love the game and will continue to play but I want that hard challenge back. I want the fact that you can't just run around like a chicken with its head cut off and not worry about some mob attacking you and you not being ready for it. Please somebody please bring back the fear. Bring back the challenge.

I hope this isn't too much of a rant but I needed to get it off my chest.

Thanks,
GL

[BotLike]

Hi,

Back 5-6 years ago when I started playing LOTRO the game was hard. My first character to be made on LOTRO was a dwarf champ and I remember marching into Silver Deep Mine for the first time and dying. The little creatures would attack you and If you had no idea what you were doing like myself you would die. Simple as that. I died 3 times in there before I found out how to use my few skills at the time to defend myself. I had an absolute blast with that. It was the most fun I think I have ever had in this game. I was challenged to figure out either A: How to sneak around the mine without getting attacked ( which failed on my second attempt to enter the mine) or B: Figure out what the **** those square little buttons did at the bottom of my screen. I know Silver Deep Mine is a starting area but my point behind all this is that its simply too easy now. I started a new dwarf champ yesterday just to see how it is now vs then and when I got into Silver Deep Mine. Nothing attacked me. Everything was yellow

I guess with all that said, my point is this. The game is simply walk around and press one button here and one button there now days. I remember back a few years ago when you had to stand on the trail just to half way stay alive. That you had to eat food and plan your journey very well or you would get into trouble. I remember when I had to call up at least one other person from my kinship to help me with a small fellowship quest because It was just that challenging. I don't know what happened but Its sad to walk around not paying attention at all and still be ok. Its said that any one mob at any level should be one shot by a character of the same level. It just doesn't make sense and It doesn't keep things interesting anymore. I love the game and will continue to play but I want that hard challenge back. I want the fact that you can't just run around like a chicken with its head cut off and not worry about some mob attacking you and you not being ready for it. Please somebody please bring back the fear. Bring back the challenge.

I hope this isn't too much of a rant but I needed to get it off my chest.

Thanks,
GL

Casual approach happened..

[greatlord365]

Casual approach happened..

Well thats depressing

[MourneBlade]

Complainers complained, Whiners whined, crybabies cried, etc. that the game is too hard and takes too much time to do anything. It got really dumbed down on the landscape and a lot of instances. Blame the hardcore solo'ists and the ones who think they are entitled to everything in the game with the least amount of effort.

[greatlord365]

Complainers complained, Whiners whined, crybabies cried, etc. that the game is too hard and takes too much time to do anything. It got really dumbed down on the landscape and a lot of instances. Blame the hardcore solo'ists and the ones who think they are entitled to everything in the game with the least amount of effort.

We worked so hard to just get a single piece of gear back then though. I guess what I want to happen more than anything would be for Mordor to be how it used to be then. Make the deadliest place in the game the hardest. I will let the rest of the map slide and be easy if they just give me one area of challenge

[SOLARMAX]

Hi,

Back 5-6 years ago when I started playing LOTRO the game was hard. My first character to be made on LOTRO was a dwarf champ and I remember marching into Silver Deep Mine for the first time and dying. The little creatures would attack you and If you had no idea what you were doing like myself you would die. Simple as that. I died 3 times in there before I found out how to use my few skills at the time to defend myself. I had an absolute blast with that. It was the most fun I think I have ever had in this game. I was challenged to figure out either A: How to sneak around the mine without getting attacked ( which failed on my second attempt to enter the mine) or B: Figure out what the **** those square little buttons did at the bottom of my screen. I know Silver Deep Mine is a starting area but my point behind all this is that its simply too easy now. I started a new dwarf champ yesterday just to see how it is now vs then and when I got into Silver Deep Mine. Nothing attacked me. Everything was yellow

I guess with all that said, my point is this. The game is simply walk around and press one button here and one button there now days. I remember back a few years ago when you had to stand on the trail just to half way stay alive. That you had to eat food and plan your journey very well or you would get into trouble. I remember when I had to call up at least one other person from my kinship to help me with a small fellowship quest because It was just that challenging. I don't know what happened but Its sad to walk around not paying attention at all and still be ok. Its said that any one mob at any level should be one shot by a character of the same level. It just doesn't make sense and It doesn't keep things interesting anymore. I love the game and will continue to play but I want that hard challenge back. I want the fact that you can't just run around like a chicken with its head cut off and not worry about some mob attacking you and you not being ready for it. Please somebody please bring back the fear. Bring back the challenge.

I hope this isn't too much of a rant but I needed to get it off my chest.

Thanks,
GL

There are two answers to this and one is short and one is lengthy.

Short story: The casual player spends the most money and has the least time to invest. Content has to offer a quick reward if the casual player is going to continue spending money.

Long Story: Snooty Kinships. When so much of the content was requiring fellowship or worse, raid level efforts, Kinships decided that they would not run a PUG (pick up group) with anyone that was (A) not in their kinship (B) not already maxed out on gear and traits. The Casual player was cut out of the loop for the highest reward content. The casual player said, "If my money is not good enough, I will take it elsewhere," and subscriptions took a nose dive - this was in the Moria to Mirkwood period.

The devs responded by not including more raids in planned future content and introducing things like inspiration stones for epic line quests and dropping the difficulty level for existing PVE content. Gear that was hard to obtain in raids or craft because the materials only dropped in hard raids were suddenly just an option because other gear that was 'almost as good' was out there. Gold became worthless and suddenly earning a gold or two in a day at very low levels was easy to do.

For Turbine there was no choice but to stop playing to the raiding/hard content/gated content crowd because most of them were already lifetime subscriptions and had made all of their purchases. The casual players that the hard core gamers looked down their nose at, had the money to spend and made up 90% of the game. Not hard to see why Turbine took things down east street.

[Nosdracir]

Complainers complained, Whiners whined, crybabies cried, etc. that the game is too hard and takes too much time to do anything. It got really dumbed down on the landscape and a lot of instances. Blame the hardcore solo'ists and the ones who think they are entitled to everything in the game with the least amount of effort.

You're blaming the symptoms for the results. Both the symptoms and the results were caused by the disease.

Turbine made development mistakes (e.g. Radiance) and siphoned money off to other projects (e.g. console LOTRO!?!). Lack of new content caused an exodus of players who preferred harder content and more frequent new content. They went off to games that met their needs. Difficulty was reduced to keep the remaining (mostly) casuals playing and paying as well as to make it easy for the new F2P players to rush to level cap. (Easing difficulty started when Moria was released and Turbine reduced the XP curve so people could level faster and need to purchase the xpac sooner.)

[Gandie2]

More then 'casual approach' is at play in your story. Skill level of the man behind the curtain comes into play as well.

You complain six years ago when your first started playing lotro you,

... died 3 times in there before I found out how to use my few skills at the time to defend myself.

died 3 times before you actually tried to figure out what the

Figure out what... ... those square little buttons did at the bottom of my screen.

I'm guessing after six years of play you not only finally figured out what those squares did. You became proficient in their use. For this very early area you changed not it.

Games do make early area's easier. Typically this is achieved by changing the type of mobs. Areas that have lots of signature mobs, mixed in with some elite ones, will change from lots of signature mixed in with elite to normal mobs mixed in with a couple signature mobs. This can be seen in many areas. Goblins in the marsh between bree and lonelands changed from sig to normal. Elite mobs changed from elite to sig.

The mobs up to the right of thestle bridge. One time most, if not all this area was sig and elite. Now all formerly signature mobs are normal and all elite are signature. Same with the giants and orcs in Dol Dinen as well as the worms and dragons north of Esteldin. I could go on listing areas where mobs have been downgraded in this fashion for pages. The drive behind it is twofold. Games do want to make lower level areas easier. But his is for more then just letting people 'sail through'. There is a practical consideration.

When a game is new there are a lot more low level people. A lot more people at each of the lower levels. Hence making it easier to form a group to venture into these areas. As games get long in the tooth it becomes harder and harder for people who or level 12 to find groups. People who are level 22 to help do that quest with all the sig and elite mobs. So to prevent people from getting frustrated trying to find groups to venture into these areas, developers just downgrade all the mobs. Now something that required a group of six can be done with two. Or even one careful experienced player.

These very early dungeons and areas as a rule though, never had signature and elite mobs. Silver deep mine six years ago was just as easy for a skilled player as it is now for you.

[Hurin]

More then 'casual approach' is at play in your story. Skill level of the man behind the curtain comes into play as well. . . *snip*

My seven year-old has progressed to level 35, entirely solo, and only died once. Very bright for a seven year-old. . . but still.

You were saying?

[Vilan]

Landscape stuff was easyified so that basically anybody can blast through it. Challenge has been mostly relegated to T2C instances so that people who seek difficulty can find it and those that don't don't. But there still is some out there.

Playing the Free Range chicken quest unescorted is a good way to bring the fear. Being 4 hours into a run and praying you don't bump into a stealthed wolf (or the even stealthier CTD) should bring back those memories.

[007Squanto]

My seven year-old has progressed to level 35, entirely solo, and only died once. Very bright for a seven year-old. . . but still.

You were saying?

That's Harvard stuff.

[Findun]

My 2 cents is this:
When will developers learn that an easy game or a game which was once hard and the dumbed down will fail in the long run? Nobody wants easy games. Take a look at the past. All games were hard. There was no such thing as an easy game. I'm talking about Commodore C64 and Amiga times. RPG did not have ingame maps. Some only had one save file etc. Still, we look back to those days and feel nostalgic.

The moment you turn a hard game into easy mode you will fail as a developer. In the end, the majority of players (imho) always desire to have a challenge. Nobody wants to run around and one shot everything and then become the uber character in like one week.

If the "easy game will be successful" theory was correct, games like Diablo3 would still be played by millions and games like Path of Exile would've died already. It's actually the other way around.

The raid in lotro has been around for like 6 months now and actually brought back some long overdue challenge to the game again. And people are still playing the raid. Still trying to beat those bosses, still trying to figure out mechanics and tactics. And still it feels rewarding to beat all bosses in challenge mode. In the end, it just doesnt feel rewarding enough to go around pick some flowers and get phatt loot. You want some challenge behind it. You want to feel like you have accomplished something.

So my 2 cents is this:
harder more rewarding content always will be > easy content.

[Beaniemooch]

You're blaming the symptoms for the results. Both the symptoms and the results were caused by the disease.

Turbine made development mistakes (e.g. Radiance) and siphoned money off to other projects (e.g. console LOTRO!?!). Lack of new content caused an exodus of players who preferred harder content and more frequent new content. They went off to games that met their needs. Difficulty was reduced to keep the remaining (mostly) casuals playing and paying as well as to make it easy for the new F2P players to rush to level cap. (Easing difficulty started when Moria was released and Turbine reduced the XP curve so people could level faster and need to purchase the xpac sooner.)

So much this - you took the words right out of my mouth.

I am hoping the stupidity has come to an end now that devs own the game. At least I'm trying to play some again, to give them a chance and see if it becomes worthwhile to be back or if it's time to let my kinships disband and my characters sail off with Bilbo permanently.

[greatlord365]

My 2 cents is this:
When will developers learn that an easy game or a game which was once hard and the dumbed down will fail in the long run? Nobody wants easy games. Take a look at the past. All games were hard. There was no such thing as an easy game. I'm talking about Commodore C64 and Amiga times. RPG did not have ingame maps. Some only had one save file etc. Still, we look back to those days and feel nostalgic.

The moment you turn a hard game into easy mode you will fail as a developer. In the end, the majority of players (imho) always desire to have a challenge. Nobody wants to run around and one shot everything and then become the uber character in like one week.

If the "easy game will be successful" theory was correct, games like Diablo3 would still be played by millions and games like Path of Exile would've died already. It's actually the other way around.

The raid in lotro has been around for like 6 months now and actually brought back some long overdue challenge to the game again. And people are still playing the raid. Still trying to beat those bosses, still trying to figure out mechanics and tactics. And still it feels rewarding to beat all bosses in challenge mode. In the end, it just doesnt feel rewarding enough to go around pick some flowers and get phatt loot. You want some challenge behind it. You want to feel like you have accomplished something.

So my 2 cents is this:
harder more rewarding content always will be > easy content.

Although I do understand the reasons posted above my others. This is exactly what I want. I want that one item that I can say "Hey look everybody I worked my a** off for this and I can now be proud to wear it" I want those days back. Please SSG. Please add some challenge. If you want us to pick flowers, put some wargs there to defend it haha

[Macroscian]

Hi,

Back 5-6 years ago when I started playing LOTRO the game was hard. My first character to be made on LOTRO was a dwarf champ and I remember marching into Silver Deep Mine for the first time and dying. The little creatures would attack you and If you had no idea what you were doing like myself you would die. Simple as that. I died 3 times in there before I found out how to use my few skills at the time to defend myself. I had an absolute blast with that. It was the most fun I think I have ever had in this game. I was challenged to figure out either A: How to sneak around the mine without getting attacked ( which failed on my second attempt to enter the mine) or B: Figure out what the **** those square little buttons did at the bottom of my screen. I know Silver Deep Mine is a starting area but my point behind all this is that its simply too easy now. I started a new dwarf champ yesterday just to see how it is now vs then and when I got into Silver Deep Mine. Nothing attacked me. Everything was yellow

I guess with all that said, my point is this. The game is simply walk around and press one button here and one button there now days. I remember back a few years ago when you had to stand on the trail just to half way stay alive. That you had to eat food and plan your journey very well or you would get into trouble. I remember when I had to call up at least one other person from my kinship to help me with a small fellowship quest because It was just that challenging. I don't know what happened but Its sad to walk around not paying attention at all and still be ok. Its said that any one mob at any level should be one shot by a character of the same level. It just doesn't make sense and It doesn't keep things interesting anymore. I love the game and will continue to play but I want that hard challenge back. I want the fact that you can't just run around like a chicken with its head cut off and not worry about some mob attacking you and you not being ready for it. Please somebody please bring back the fear. Bring back the challenge.

I hope this isn't too much of a rant but I needed to get it off my chest.

Thanks,
GL

I have never ever died in the intro, even when it had that signature aurochs. Goblin prowlers, diseased sickle-flies of some sort, those bears and dwarves now, the cave claw cave, that random lynx...I've seen perhaps five versions of the intro and never died. I think you don't really remember it.

[Nymphonic]

For me, Moria was never hard. It was just tedious with the mob density. It seemed like I was fighting a mob every 5 steps.

I like it much better now than before.

As for the rest of Eriador, people were complaining even back in 2007 that it was too easy. I remember one guy sarcastically saying that he played by rolling his face across the keyboard.

I just cannot ever remember this game being hard.

Edit: I thought the OP was about Silvertine Mine in Moria. Total failure in reading comprehension on my part!


I'm tell ya what I miss. I miss having the option to skip the introduction. That was nice.

[Macroscian]

For me, Moria was never hard. It was just tedious with the mob density. It seemed like I was fighting a mob every 5 steps.

I like it much better now than before.

As for the rest of Eriador, people were complaining even back in 2007 that it was too easy. I remember one guy sarcastically saying that he played by rolling his face across the keyboard.

I just cannot ever remember this game being hard.

He's talking about the Thorin's Hall intro up to level 5-6.
On a side note I rather liked getting half a level just fighting my way back to quest giver in Moria but it's certainly faster going now

[MithrielWielder]

A lot of good info in the responses and some misleading responses.

The beginning areas, and every other area in the game, have absolutely been changed and made easier. But this is not because of casuals, but rather due to level cap increases. At the original pace, which was designed for level 50 cap, it would take an unacceptable amount of time to reach level 105, or 75 or whatever, and you would be doing really hard stuff designed for groups by yourself, so they made stuff easier and accelerated the leveling up. All the careful balance from the original game was destroyed at that moment. The demand for level cap increases was largely driven by the raiders, not the casuals.

Yes, it was the snooty Kins that killed the game. A huge amount of the player base was locked out of the best content. Eventually, though it took several years, the problem was addressed by reducing group content and making the top gear more accessible to the players who had been locked out. The elitists then left the game, victims of their own snootiness. Now they are off being snooty in some other game, or more likely have been jumping game to game to game over the last few years..

So it was these two factors, one caused by faulty design, one caused by elitist players, that killed the game. Elitists hurt the casuals, which also hurt themselves, and ultimately hurt the game. So devs when designing new game need to stop pandering to these people. Level cap increases necessarily mean destroying existing content, and replacing with a much smaller amount of new content. This is why all the great instances like Carn Dum are no longer done. A huge waste of intellectual property. Expansions should be an addition to the current game, not a replacement of the existing game. Neither players nor devs should ever consider a game in the future that has level cap increases.

At this point, the devs have done a decent job picking up the pieces and restoring some balance, albeit with a reduced player base, and they feel they need to continue walking down this path of level cap increases. For the players that have stayed, and will stay until the end, this has been big part of our life. So, we have put ourselves in a position that dumb decisions other people make has a huge impact on our life. When you make that much of an investment, its not "just a game." Its one of the major things in your life. So in the future, we will have to carefully assess before starting down such a path again.

[Joedangod]

Yes, it was the snooty Kins that killed the game. A huge amount of the player base was locked out of the best content. Eventually, though it took several years, the problem was addressed by reducing group content and making the top gear more accessible to the players who had been locked out. The elitists then left the game, victims of their own snootiness. Now they are off being snooty in some other game, or more likely have been jumping game to game to game over the last few years..

You weren't locked out, you were unwilling to commit yourself to getting the best gear. Most players who struggle in the end game content just want the rewards, they don't try figure out what they're doing wrong, they don't care to improve and adjust their builds and rotations in order to maximise their potential. The "snooty" kinships wanted challenging content, by necessity challenging content results in a level of exclusivity. If everyone does something blindfolded then it can hardly be considered a challenge. The difficulty of content was reduced to appeal to those who weren't interested in improving themselves to the level required for challenging content, this naturally led to the people who wanted a challenge to leave...because the thing they cared about most was gone.

[Findun]

You weren't locked out, you were unwilling to commit yourself to getting the best gear. Most players who struggle in the end game content just want the rewards, they don't try figure out what they're doing wrong, they don't care to improve and adjust their builds and rotations in order to maximise their potential. The "snooty" kinships wanted challenging content, by necessity challenging content results in a level of exclusivity. If everyone does something blindfolded then it can hardly be considered a challenge. The difficulty of content was reduced to appeal to those who weren't interested in improving themselves to the level required for challenging content, this naturally led to the people who wanted a challenge to leave...because the thing they cared about most was gone.

Agree totally. I still notice this fact on the servers I play on. People openly whine in world chat that they've never seen the throne raid from inside. But upon inspecting their gear you see why. I mean, it really comes down to commitment. I have been away from lotro for over a year. Came back, geared up, made necessary changes which allowed me to be able to play the current content on the hardest difficulty and even beat the current raid in challenger mode a couple weeks ago (in which I succesfully tanked id4c on my first try ever!). And I have a life, and a family.

If I can do it. Everybody can. So I agree totally with Jeodangod here. You were and you are still not locked out. If you commit yourself, are willing to learn and adjust and most importantly are willing to take advice from more experienced players, you will improve, and eventually participate in endgame content with the so called "better players". period. No being locked out for you no more!

[Aedfrith]

It's also the case that because landscape is easy, you don't need the "best gear" to faceroll it. And if you pick enough flowers or grind a bit of Harlond or TSS, you'll get gear that makes it even easier without too much effort.
As Joe says, "the best gear" is only needed for the hardest content, and even then it only makes a significant difference if you're a DPSer. Properly built tanks, healers and CC classes don't need the best gear to do their jobs.

[Macroscian]

It's also the case that because landscape is easy, you don't need the "best gear" to faceroll it. And if you pick enough flowers or grind a bit of Harlond or TSS, you'll get gear that makes it even easier without too much effort.
As Joe says, "the best gear" is only needed for the hardest content, and even then it only makes a significant difference if you're a DPSer. Properly built tanks, healers and CC classes don't need the best gear to do their jobs.

Again, he's whining about the levels 1-7 being too easy, the introduction 15 minutes in Thorin's Hall in this case. Read that opening post. To me it reads like a bit of a joke but from the response here...maybe not.

[WorrBinpike]

I can remember riding through the 21th Hall the first time was absoluty horrible on Level Cap 65. I kinda loved Moria on level cap, it was pretty dark and dangerous. But charakters have progressed in Skillpoints an trees now (and the Moria revamp makes it waaaaay easier to play there), so this is one point that makes this game easier than before, chars are just stronger. Of course if you have twinks, all content will be easier, because just you know things.

I remember Dol Dinen six years ago, with my first toon (Hunter) i dont even thought about doing quests there without help from others.

[Nymphonic]

He's talking about the Thorin's Hall intro up to level 5-6.
On a side note I rather liked getting half a level just fighting my way back to quest giver in Moria but it's certainly faster going now

I'm dumb. I thought he meant the Silvertine Mines in Moria. I really hate it when I try to act like I'm smart and it blows up in my face.

[WorrBinpike]

i gues you can reflect the threadstarters post throughout the whole game.