Virtue System Feedback

[Strider5548]

Granted, I have not had a chance to play much, but I am really liking the new virtue system. Great work by the dev team, it feels like a system that will promote more deeding, isn't ultra grindy (in the sense that it doesn't feel like a grind, not that there isn't a lot to do), and the best part is it doesn't appear to be locked behind store bought items (I have no problem spending money, and I do spend a lot on this game, but making progression practically impossible without spending $$ is bad practice).

My one request, as you continue to revamp other segments of this game, please keep consistency in mind. You did a great job with virtues, would love to see similar design (both from a UI perspective and from a back-end perspective) with other systems that will hopefully get revamped (i.e. LI's).

[Illiniwek80]

It was generally a good change. I did not like nerfing Zeal, which was heretofore a go-to and now is a never-go-to.

Doesn't seem like it notifies you when you level a virtue; at least I have not noticed it yet.

[Olgomil]

Doesn't seem like it notifies you when you level a virtue; at least I have not noticed it yet.

You receive an alert.

Sergio :-)

[FolklegendRedux]

Granted, I have not had a chance to play much, but I am really liking the new virtue system. Great work by the dev team, it feels like a system that will promote more deeding, isn't ultra grindy (in the sense that it doesn't feel like a grind, not that there isn't a lot to do), and the best part is it doesn't appear to be locked behind store bought items (I have no problem spending money, and I do spend a lot on this game, but making progression practically impossible without spending $$ is bad practice).

My one request, as you continue to revamp other segments of this game, please keep consistency in mind. You did a great job with virtues, would love to see similar design (both from a UI perspective and from a back-end perspective) with other systems that will hopefully get revamped (i.e. LI's).

It's actually more difficult to level specific virtues than the old way. Previously, you could just complete the deeds to advance that virtue. Now, the cap appears to be half of your current level. So when you hit the cap, the VXP gets dumped into some other virtue, whether it was the one you wanted to level or not. Which means you have to constantly be jumping in and out of the panel switching which virtue is earning to keep the ones you want earning. It becomes especially tedious when you have to change it every other level to get back to leveling the one you're trying to focus on. It's needlessly complex. I don't really see the point of the change aside from adding a new grind. It would have been far simpler to make it similar to traits giving a pool of VXP that can be applied to whichever virtue you choose, when you choose to do it. No random application to virtues you don't want to focus on. No VXP wasted on virtues other than the ones you intend to use first. There's no way anyone tested this leveling a new character, or it would have been quickly obvious how this is a step backward from the system they had in place.

[Occum]

Wit seems that it could be a useful virtue at higher levels.

I dropped my lvl 106 main to play a lvl 85 loremaster a few days before the update. So Wit is at lvl zero, but I want to ramp it up for later, so it's "earning". I notice that I can't slot it...does one need to have a virtue at least lvl 1 to slot it?

[Ballie]

If you check the filter on your usual chat window for Advancement you will get the VXP gains and Virtue ranking displayed. This might help avoid all gains going into your lowest current virtue if all others are capped - the earning and slotted virtues.

There remains a huge gap in the available VXP in game compared to what's needed to cap all virtues at rank 60 if starting out now and if not using Valar items along the way.

I like that the system got a revamp stat-wise but it is just another grind opportunity for new players to give up on.

In being generous on the transfer to those achieving rank 20 in virtues it means there is plenty of VXP in the game to max all 21 virtues. However with the diminishing returns for higher ranks this is not the case, getting less rewarded the more you had achieved, but worse still if no progress has been made on virtues before U24.

The early game is much more generous for earning VXP, as can be seen on the LSs. Players might not be aware that the post Moria content provides less earning potential, so if festivals are avoided along the way there's no catch up later on, until VXP end (cap) game dailies are accessed.

The change to a few virtues meant that they radically changed their appeal for particular classes, the live stream vague reply to this was kinda like the devs know best, but I can't help but think it's just covering for the mistake that went live before the fix or just the vagueness of not understanding the mechanics and the devs must surely know what they are doing.

It makes us wary that having made a choice to rank a particular virtue in the past to have it made largely useless that it might happen again in the future with the same line of the dev knows best (having completed their internship). Like deed completions being a bad thing for you if you'd gone that bit too far with it.

Was Wit added just to make a 3 X 7 grind? [EDIT I mean to write grid but muscle memory took over, that's the games fault! LOL]

Limiting to one earning requires you to slot under capped virtues or find overflow going to an unselected lowest rank virtue. Deed completions landing 6,000 VXP for metas need more options.


Should have been made fair to all, no smoke and mirrors to hide stuff. Should have given us the points to spend and not increase ranking costs to create another huge grind and stifle new player advancements.

[Moln]

The early game is much more generous for earning VXP, as can be seen on the LSs. Players might not be aware that the post Moria content provides less earning potential, so if festivals are avoided along the way there's no catch up later on, until VXP end (cap) game dailies are accessed.

...

It makes us wary that having made a choice to rank a particular virtue in the past to have it made largely useless that it might happen again in the future with the same line of the dev knows best (having completed their internship). Like deed completions being a bad thing for you if you'd gone that bit too far with it.

.

I hope, now that the system is in place, SSG will make some revisions to post Moria areas to give out more VXP than is currently available, even if it's just adding it to the sorts of deeds we get it from elsewhere for the sake of consistency. I continue to think there should be small VXP rewards for any repeatable content that was ever endgame, even if it's less efficient than the clunky weeklies, so that we can work on our virtues at any level.

On the other point, I think SSG doesn't care about our mistrust levelling a particular virtue going forward, due to the change in this update, because they expect endgame players to cap their virtues between level increasing updates.

[Hephburz-2]

This is my overall understanding of why virtues are now where they are at;

Deeds have long existed in this game, and there hasn't often been much incentive behind doing them for a long time now, aside from the LP farming / those of us who ever actually bothered to clear our deed logs / the rest of players who just got their slotted 5 to 20 and stopped.

Whilst, that's great - the bottom line is, it's content, and content isn't created in a game to be ignored, if people aren't doing it, they will incentivise people to do it = Lotro Points + Virtues, and then if people continue to ignore it we get a revamp. Which is where we are at now, deeds & virtues alike were ignored and sidelined for many many years by what I understand to be, the vast majority of the lotro community.

So now we have a system whereby we are extremely incentive-ised to do it, because the increase to our characters is now worth taking note of, anyone hoping for a nerf is grasping at straws.

Those of you claiming there aren't deeds in the game for you to get rank 60 on all virtues. Hm. Well, duh, that's the idea. No, there aren't currently enough "deeds" in the game to max out your virtues to 60. Hello. That's why deeds are no longer the ONLY source of gaining virtues, and whether people like it or not, as I have said above, they've created the content, its there to be played, festivals, featured instances, dailies/weeklies, all things people across the community like/dislike - they have given us more incentive to do it.

I do agree with creating some more consistency in terms of what does and what does not reward VXP from our deed log though, I imagine most of these were just converted from virtue rank granting deeds to VXP granting deeds. However Meta wrapper deeds like "Explorer of X" or "Slayer of X" in some regions rewards 2000 VXP, and in others, none. Some consistency here would be good.

I do not agree we should have weeklies/dailies at all points of the game for virtue XP, that, at end-game, is madness. Being able to go to every pre-level cap zone and do those dailies for more VXP, you'd be rank 60 on everything in less than two weeks. Unless said quests were level-restricted by +/- 5 levels, making it impossible for end-game characters to do it. Which I could get on board with.

On a completely unrelated note - why in the world are the new daily instances - 'Public', this is a very very bad choice.

[Illiniwek80]

You receive an alert.

Sergio :-)

Well, I should pay more attention then!

[Moln]

I do not agree we should have weeklies/dailies at all points of the game for virtue XP, that, at end-game, is madness. Being able to go to every pre-level cap zone and do those dailies for more VXP, you'd be rank 60 on everything in less than two weeks. Unless said quests were level-restricted by +/- 5 levels, making it impossible for end-game characters to do it. Which I could get on board with.

On a completely unrelated note - why in the world are the new daily instances - 'Public', this is a very very bad choice.

I made the suggestion in more detail on the Bullroarer forum. Keep the awards proportional to virtue rank costs of that level, with some factor for the time they take on level (because there's no reason a quest for Wildermore Survivors, or even the wrapper to do five of them, should be giving you as much as a run of Carn Dum or similar), and you'd get some seriously diminishing returns as you grab content below your level, plus there's only so much time in the day. You could even knock off some VXP just for being a not current level cap quest.

My worry is that their plan is (based on a comment made about the Legendary Servers) to have temporary weekly quests at level cap that go away when the next update comes out, which, like the ILI problem makes it harder and harder for a new character to catch up.

[Hephburz-2]

My worry is that their plan is (based on a comment made about the Legendary Servers) to have temporary weekly quests at level cap that go away when the next update comes out, which, like the ILI problem makes it harder and harder for a new character to catch up.

Such situations are a by-product of long-existing MMO's and something we've spoken about in a different forum thread iirc. Older players will 'always' have the advantage.