What other parts of the game has become worse over the years?

[LotroVidz]

We tend to talk alot about grind/LI/p2w issues, but there are some other issues that I also think has become worse over the years. These things seems to be in the shadows of the larger issues, but still important to note IMO =)

Gameplay

• Abandonment of power management - This has caused massive changes to the way combat works overall, mostly in endgame group content. Lotro was way more tactical before, you couldn't just spam skills because you would eventually run out of power.
• Decrease in landscape difficulty - I don't want hardcore landscape, but I think no class should be able to do mass pulls and not even break a sweat. It should be possible to die if u are not careful. Lotro landscape difficulty became way worse after ROR, and never got improved.
• Crazy stat changes - At what point was it a good idea to make freep DPS so strong that you needed to triple the morale of creeps in Moors? This effected spars between freeps(which was balanced back in the day), but also the balance across the whole game to instances and 1 shotting mobs on landscape.
• Introduction of t2+ and removal of challenge - This is quite a recent change, but in what way or form does more morale/damage on mobs equals challenge? Yes, mobs should hit hard and be more resistant in higher tiers, but that wasn't the main challenge back in the day as it is now.
• Making dps gaps between classes too large - We are in a time where some classes does such insane damage that you counter that with insane morale pools on enemies.. Making it EXTREMELY tedious playing 3 mans in certain compositions if you lack the "right" dps classes. Normalize DPS please,
• Abandonment of PVMP - I understand why you rather not touch PVMP, it got ruined by some points mentioned above... How can you create any form of balance when 1 side has 3x morale, making freeps fight "mini bosses".. Turbine made the mistake, but you kept building on it.
• Abandonment of old systems - You stopped care about, epic battles, skirmishes, mounted combat, crafting, world bosses, allegiance system... did i forget something? Many of these things are easy fix.. While we are stuck with 4 instances for several months, you didn't think of scaling some other systems to make your players have more things to do? Nope, you just make everything useless, leaving 4 instances as endgame content for months.
• Abandonment of fellowship maneuvers - This was another tactical element to group play, it's a shame that you never revived this feature.
• Introduction of essence system - This could have been a fun system if introduced properly.. But you have made this system like every other system a huge grind that is monetized. You need to pay to unslot essences, its overall a very confusing system, its only a few of the essences that is viable(thought this was meant to be a system to tailor stats?)

Animations

• Auto-attack animations - These animations has been speed up by a ridiculous amount, slow them down a notch to make it look more natural and in pace with regular skill animations.
• Run animation(Male human) - I honestly think these has become worse, they looked way better back in 2013.
• Cloak sway animation(Female human) - I don't know what you were smoking creating these cloak animations for female humans, but it looks sooo bad compared to the old cloak sway animations..
• Blue line hunter animations - Most classes look good while running and attacking, blue line hunter NEVER did after you made it possible to run while doing induction based skills.
• Animation of champion skill Ferocious Strikes - The animation of this skill needs to be slowed down a bit, it looks out of line with the rest of the skills..

Graphics/UI

• Glitching distance textures - In every new regions I see these flickering mountain/distance textures.. Why did you introduce this issue, it isn't an issue for older regions so it seems quite stupid?
• Downgrade of lightning/distance textures quality - It seems like you forget to utilize this feature in the later regions... Here is what i mean, I compare Eregion to Erebor : https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...tning-textures
• Uglier in-game maps - The google earth map views are just so ugly compared to the beautiful maps from SOA/MOM/SOM/ROI/ROR/HD ..
• Lack of graphical updates - During the days we have been introduced to : DX10 dynamic shadows, DX10 Distance lightning, DX11 interactive water.. Instead of getting updates to the graphics, we get downgrades. Increasing number of clutter in certain areas to make it more laggy does not count.

Some of these points are just opinions, some are facts. Ask if anything is unclear ^^

[NeebPlayer]

Yo, I came in here to reprimand you, but I think it was just the title of the thread. Like we are looking for reasons to complain.

The truth is everything here is true, but the ones that really trigger me are the constant stat changes and t2+ difficulties.

I think changing the stats around like they do, having to adjust them with every level cap raise is the most amateur thing they do. And they do a lot of that, but this is the peak. Not to mention it feels like a betrayal of trust every time. There is zero consistency. I get that nothing's ever guaranteed, but this game takes it way too far.

T2+ difficulty... man... this is the last straw that broke the camel's back for me. There is 2 things. 1) All they do is turn instances into tedious timesinks. Huge morale pools and mitigations. Who the ffff... do they think they are?! How much time of our lives do they feel entitled to? Actually, the more I think about this, the more it seems like a frantic decision on their part. Trying to get more people engaged in their endgame, but this will have the opposite effect. 2) Increase mob damage? Really? Again, gating content behind gear to greater and greater extent is going to reduce the number of people who can still be bothered, not boost it.

[WhiteWolf21x]

There are game design reasons for a lot of these, which I can try to explain to you if you want.

One thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of complaints are done in hindsight. Lotro was released in 2007, which was the early days of modern MMO's. There was no blue-print on how take a mmo beyond 2 years. Its easy now to say "x decision was a mistake" or "should've done A instead of B" but when its 2009 and the dev team needs to come up with more content, what do they do? They don't have 13 years of mistakes to learn from, they have nothing, because modern MMO's were new. Turbine did what they felt was best at the time.

[Laurelinarien]

I think you're both right in all your points. Brilliant posts.

I remember getting access right away to gear (crafted or bartered) to head into instances and t1 raid. Skipping the time consideration (coz every group/kin advanced at its own pace), success there gave you access to your first bonus sets and there you head to t2. Complete! Level alts, help your mates, not worry about locks too much coz there's many alts you can keep up with.

Maybe it's just me, stuck back in Rift thru Isengard times... I liked those times better.

[LotroVidz]

There are game design reasons for a lot of these, which I can try to explain to you if you want.

One thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of complaints are done in hindsight. Lotro was released in 2007, which was the early days of modern MMO's. There was no blue-print on how take a mmo beyond 2 years. Its easy now to say "x decision was a mistake" or "should've done A instead of B" but when its 2009 and the dev team needs to come up with more content, what do they do? They don't have 13 years of mistakes to learn from, they have nothing, because modern MMO's were new. Turbine did what they felt was best at the time.

Hmm, 2009-2013 era was one of my favourite times in Lotro.. I really loved the Mirkwood and ITA instance clusters, one of the best instances to this day. But it wasn't just the instances, the core game was just better. The classes, the combat, the balance, and the whole setup of group play was just superior to what we have now.

[WhiteWolf21x]

Hmm, 2009-2013 era was one of my favourite times in Lotro.. I really loved the Mirkwood and ITA instance clusters, one of the best instances to this day. But it wasn't just the instances, the core game was just better. The classes, the combat, the balance, and the whole setup of group play was just superior to what we have now.

And while 2009-2013 may be one of your favorite times in Lotro, there were still a lot of decisions made during that time span that negatively impacted the game.

[Chris91]

Crazy stat changes - At what point was it a good idea to make freep DPS so strong that you needed to triple the morale of creeps in Moors? This effected spars between freeps(which was balanced back in the day), but also the balance across the whole game to instances and 1 shotting mobs on landscape.

The stat caps had their own set of flaws, for example that old armour from 4 updates ago was still viable or even best in slot (and not because of an OP set bonus like some throne armour, just because of the stats)

[*]Introduction of t2+ and removal of challenge - This is quite a recent change, but in what way or form does more morale/damage on mobs equals challenge? Yes, mobs should hit hard and be more resistant in higher tiers, but that wasn't the main challenge back in the day as it is now.

I think this is kind of rosy retrospection..you always had bosses that were changed significantly or made significantly harder by challenge mode and those that weren't. And currently in Anvil there were some bosses whose mechanics were altered significantly by T3 as opposed to T2 (Hrimil, Ishvita). Part of this is also that we had some very good bosses in the past and Anvil, which is the only raid in the new 3 tiers system hasn't had one exceptional boss

I think it doesn't matter whether the extra mechanics come from a challenge mode or a higher tier, as long as they are there. And again, several challenge modes weren't changing much at all (ID1 and ID3 in Throne, Lightning in ToO)

I think extra damage on top of extra mechanics is be better than just extra mechanics

[*]Making dps gaps between classes too large - We are in a time where some classes does such insane damage that you counter that with insane morale pools on enemies.. Making it EXTREMELY tedious playing 3 mans in certain compositions if you lack the "right" dps classes. Normalize DPS please,

Anvil had some of the best balance between dps, yeah currently there's imbalance, but this isn't something new either and always fluctuating. In ToO Burglar stacking was OP for example

[*]Abandonment of old systems - You stopped care about, epic battles, skirmishes, mounted combat, crafting, world bosses, allegiance system... did i forget something? Many of these things are easy fix.. While we are stuck with 4 instances for several months, you didn't think of scaling some other systems to make your players have more things to do? Nope, you just make everything useless, leaving 4 instances as endgame content for months.

Several of those (epic battles, mounted combat) are just hated by the playerbase. Allegiance is just reskinned reputation. Roving Threats and skirmishes have never been challenging whatsoever (also we have new roving threats)

[Arandour]

Many of those things need big team of developers and SSG have small team that they dont even can do the basics like balance the dps classes so dont expect to deal with other older things.Lotro at the moment barely surviving.The think that is unacceptable tho even for a small team is the unbalance of the classes.We were fine more or less before burglars update.Then they make them OP for at least 7 months till Wardens and Yellow mostly RKs buffed up also.That is long time to wait.I did recently for fun couple of runs in Anvil T3 and my champion and the hunter in the group we fall in depression when yellow rks, burglars and wardens show their parses.Didnt even have the mood to change from AOE to single for side shard bosses cause whats the point.We talk about a huge gap between us in every aspect.Now they try to fix creeps issues while freep classes are not even balanced yet for the upcoming content, i call that a very bad timing.Cannot do everything at the same time if you dont have big team.So i dont realy care about all the others that you mention, i have accept that the game is barely surviving so they dont have the time to deal with many things but the freeps class balance at least have to be fixed NOW before new instances not later.

[jokor]

During all this years lotro is still so good. No P2W free game and rewarding for those who put effort in it. In the fact lotro is what it is because he adapted to his hardcore and casual players. After decade customers are still confident in SSG.

[Arandour]

After decade customers are still confident in SSG.

I am not confident about them anymore,they have put my class in so much pressure after Throne since now and we talking for years not months.Its the second time since SSG got the game that i pay so much money to buy the best bundle for supporting the game there is not going to be third if they continue like this.To be honest i am almost ready to give up the game for sure this time cause since first Mordors expansion all the time i have to worried about unfriendly mechanics,being under power even have to work twice as hard than other classes, worried for being not useful for group play cause my supporting skills havent up scaled properly since 105 lvl, replaced by another dps class etc etc.After recently changes things become even worst so what confidence about them we are talking about.They are good for designing environment, maps and open worlds,good for making solo quests,dailies and nothing else.Look the current balance of dps classes,unbelievable...
Sorry Jokor but the more time passes and i see no changes or at least some kind of response from them of what is going to happen i become more and more nervous because i had enough already all this years.I have sent pm to every blue name i see kinda active no one answer,have sent even to official support got probably an automatic response,have made thread with 100+ replies from fellow champions that worried of what is going to be,no one answer to say at least that they are aware of the situation.
I sell software too you know and get monthly subscriptions like they did, its not game tho but doesnt matter.If i was treating/supporting my customers the way SSG treating/supporting us i would probably left with out job.Its at least disrespectful not to get even one response when you have problem and problem that caused by the company not you.

[jokor]

I know there is always some players are angry toward them but if lotro weren't a succes game it would have closed a long time ago. This is the proof all majority of player are confident in lotro and the game is enough healthy to make money whatever you are thinking about. Number and statistics are here obviously. They would have no interest to work for free.

Time for player like you to leave and try to find another better mmorpg if it is possible. Good luck my friends.

[LotroVidz]

The stat caps had their own set of flaws, for example that old armour from 4 updates ago was still viable or even best in slot (and not because of an OP set bonus like some throne armour, just because of the stats)

How can they not tackle this simple issue? Gear should only be slightly stronger and never so strong that it can outlast several gear updates.. It's just pure incompetence from the devs. And in no way or form any excuse.

I think this is kind of rosy retrospection..you always had bosses that were changed significantly or made significantly harder by challenge mode and those that weren't. And currently in Anvil there were some bosses whose mechanics were altered significantly by T3 as opposed to T2 (Hrimil, Ishvita). Part of this is also that we had some very good bosses in the past and Anvil, which is the only raid in the new 3 tiers system hasn't had one exceptional boss

I think the tier system in itself isn't bad, it's just that SSG does a bad job with it... They can't balance it in a good way really.. Whats the point of T4 when we have T5? How can you or SSG expect balance if you just slap a +% on damage/morale across all mobs? For example, in harrowing.. the chieftains 2million+ hp.. Obviously SSG can't handle this tier system, so they should just focus on adding a good challenge to each instance instead. It has worked all the way up to 2018, so why change this now when no one wants it.

I think it doesn't matter whether the extra mechanics come from a challenge mode or a higher tier, as long as they are there. And again, several challenge modes weren't changing much at all (ID1 and ID3 in Throne, Lightning in ToO)

I think extra damage on top of extra mechanics is be better than just extra mechanics

I think T1>T2>T2C has worked way better previously, and this new tier system has been handled poorly. This new tier system doesn't encourage player skill, but rather having the strongest DPS classes available to be able to clear within a decent time.

Several of those (epic battles, mounted combat) are just hated by the playerbase. Allegiance is just reskinned reputation. Roving Threats and skirmishes have never been challenging whatsoever (also we have new roving threats)

Why do you think everything has to be challenging ? They could release new skirmishes that are interesting and balanced, also roving threats are a great idea that is poorly implemented.. Why I mention these things are because they need improvement, some just needs to be properly scaled etc etc.. you don't have to tell me. Having 4 instances as endgame in a new expansion is so freaking stupid when they can simply scale other system in the game to give players more things to do.

[NeebPlayer]

There are game design reasons for a lot of these, which I can try to explain to you if you want.

One thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of complaints are done in hindsight. Lotro was released in 2007, which was the early days of modern MMO's. There was no blue-print on how take a mmo beyond 2 years. Its easy now to say "x decision was a mistake" or "should've done A instead of B" but when its 2009 and the dev team needs to come up with more content, what do they do? They don't have 13 years of mistakes to learn from, they have nothing, because modern MMO's were new. Turbine did what they felt was best at the time.

I don't know about this. For me, things got worse after HD. HD was still ok despite the lack of raids and classic instances. When I say ok, I mean compared to what we have now. However, with the introduction of essences and imbued LIs, there is a clear shift in mentality towards way more grind and more aggressive monetization. This was done when Rowan was the EP. Vyv continued this, changing very little other than returning to classic instances. Still she was better because she kept the level cap at 100 for years. With Sev everything speeds up, pushing out raid after raid, they allow content to live a much shorter life before made obsolete by new content. New tier of essences every 2-3 months. LI scrolls pushed to the store, as they refuse to add new ways to earn them. So I see it as a gradual downward spiral rather than just the result of some mistakes made in the beginning.

[FolklegendRedux]

Stat changes have been an issue since they overhauled everything from SoA to Moria. It's been non-stop tweaking ever since. Fellowship maneuvers originally were quite powerful, especially the complex ones and rewarded good group coordination. So much of the game instead became just blasting DPS and ignoring fight mechanics because there was no penalty to playing that way. It became less efficient to do fights the way they were intended. The answer has always been to amp up damage and jack up monster morale/mits.

[Mithithil]

>>>

Quote Originally Posted by LotroVidz View Post[*]Making dps gaps between classes too large - We are in a time where some classes does such insane damage that you counter that with insane morale pools on enemies.. Making it EXTREMELY tedious playing 3 mans in certain compositions if you lack the "right" dps classes. Normalize DPS please,
Anvil had some of the best balance between dps, yeah currently there's imbalance, but this isn't something new either and always fluctuating. In ToO Burglar stacking was OP for example
>>>

I think the real issue with this is not raids, where there are clearly defined roles and if you try to step out of that it all goes runny. Its the "grind" stuff like slayer deeds and dailes. The difference a dps class takes vs a non dps class on these has become silly. 15 minutes for a solo run through Filth Well versus around three times that for a non dps class. Not really conducive to playing alts.

[Arnenna]

Daily locks on instances, which then progressed to weekly locking.

[LotroVidz]

>>>

Quote Originally Posted by LotroVidz View Post[*]Making dps gaps between classes too large - We are in a time where some classes does such insane damage that you counter that with insane morale pools on enemies.. Making it EXTREMELY tedious playing 3 mans in certain compositions if you lack the "right" dps classes. Normalize DPS please,
Anvil had some of the best balance between dps, yeah currently there's imbalance, but this isn't something new either and always fluctuating. In ToO Burglar stacking was OP for example
>>>

I think the real issue with this is not raids, where there are clearly defined roles and if you try to step out of that it all goes runny. Its the "grind" stuff like slayer deeds and dailes. The difference a dps class takes vs a non dps class on these has become silly. 15 minutes for a solo run through Filth Well versus around three times that for a non dps class. Not really conducive to playing alts.

Agreed.. back in the days a DPS class didn't do 10x DPS compared to any other class. Game has become extremely class/gear dependent rather than teamplay and personal skill.

[maartena]

Daily locks on instances, which then progressed to weekly locking.

This wouldn't be such a great deal if they actually updated some of the old instances to match with new gear, e.g. add a "second" chest next to the existing one that holds gear for level 130.... and is subject to the same daily lock. Instances like Lost Temple, Glinghant, Haudh Valendil, Sari-Surma and all the other instances that scale to level 130 have become forgotten wastelands. People only run the Minas Morgul instances now, or the occasional Warg Pens because people still seem to use that to level.

They really, really should update the loot tables for older instances. I would say "make old instances great again", but boy, that "great again" saying is actually getting tired....

[Moondog548]

I too don't WANT to focus on the negative, but this is just good (and important) constructive criticism. I hope it can help SSG focus its efforts to keep this great game healthy.

[CaerArianrhod]

There are game design reasons for a lot of these, which I can try to explain to you if you want.

Yes pleas. Try it.

One thing I think a lot of people don't realize is that a lot of complaints are done in hindsight. Lotro was released in 2007, which was the early days of modern MMO's. There was no blue-print on how take a mmo beyond 2 years. Its easy now to say "x decision was a mistake" or "should've done A instead of B" but when its 2009 and the dev team needs to come up with more content, what do they do? They don't have 13 years of mistakes to learn from, they have nothing, because modern MMO's were new. Turbine did what they felt was best at the time.

This is not true now anymore. It was true back to 2013. Since then Turbine and now SSG did nothing else than let the game bleed out. And more, three years ago SSG did a 180° turn. They don't design a game anymore, instead the are designing micro transactions and grind and then developing content around them.
One of the "highlights" of the past was, as the prior executive producer lied into everyone's face with servers in Europe and brand new hardware. I remember very well how well the test server could handle 3000 (three thousand!) players in Bree fighting against many mobs. But i never saw that performance on live servers.

Since 2013 it was more than enough time to learn from mistakes, from the own one and from mistakes from others. But SSG never learned, nor will they ever learn, because they are not willing to do so.
SSG has no idea where it want to go with the game. Not a single one idea! Permanent muddling along important parts of the game like the character stats, itemisation etc. is not a concept at all! But they do a lot of things, which are only for promoting micro transactions and shop usage. Just to mention a few: the fanfare sound if you open a loot-box (one of the techniques, which was highly criticized across many instances and was one of the point, why the Justice in Belgium forbid loot-boxes, because of this casino-like behavior) or the very very old "technique", where one just create a problem and then let it grow until the pain is at maximum, then offer a solution for money. (see the "Legendary catch-up Box") or the new carry-all bags. And as Turbine did so do SSG: not reinvesting anything from the money they earn through the game back in to the development.

The lack of communication was typical for Turbine and it is typical for SSG and this is nothing for which they need 13 years to learn! SSG is at the moment not even able to provide themselves with a functional cache earning possibility, since the ingame shop is crushing every weekend for 4 weeks now.
No, what we see is not a company which need time to learn and improve. What we see is the mortal agony of a company, which excessively used and wasted it's resources without thinking about the future and now whose "house" is collapsing over it's head.

[Armitas]

Crafting. - you can't craft your way through a zone. You have to complete a zone, and grind rep, to craft gear for a zone you no longer need gear for because it's time for the next Zone.

PvP. - I used to be big on PvP, but given it has taken 3 months to finish 1 Leg pair, and another three to almost have my second pair, when am I ever going to have time to finish a PvP build? There is too much for a free to do.

Legendary Relics - I have hordes of them, they still drop, but can't use them for anything other than SoEs for incredible amount of shards . Let us make new relics from them again .

Weapon Titles - the stats on these are so behind inflation that they make no useful difference. I think it's time to start thinking about % increases so you don't have to keep updating this stuff.

[Bohemond71]

[*]Making dps gaps between classes too large

Agreed with pretty much everything you said. Quoted is an interesting point that had more far reaching impacts than just instances. I can't speak to how bad it is currently, but the disparity has grown over a very long time. Back in SoA, the differences weren't so overwhelming. This made playing difference classes on landscape - even solo - a more "fair" experience. I played most classes in early SoA - got my guardian to mid 40s before overpower was added, and captain very close to cap before MoM was released. I even knew some players who enjoyed soloing their minstrels to cap pre-warspeech. They certainly killed more slowly than my hunter or champ, but this was somewhat balance by them being much sturdier and dying less often. Power management was a balancing factor too.

[Arnenna]

Agreed with pretty much everything you said. Quoted is an interesting point that had more far reaching impacts than just instances. I can't speak to how bad it is currently, but the disparity has grown over a very long time. Back in SoA, the differences weren't so overwhelming. This made playing difference classes on landscape - even solo - a more "fair" experience. I played most classes in early SoA - got my guardian to mid 40s before overpower was added, and captain very close to cap before MoM was released. I even knew some players who enjoyed soloing their minstrels to cap pre-warspeech. They certainly killed more slowly than my hunter or champ, but this was somewhat balance by them being much sturdier and dying less often. Power management was a balancing factor too.

The gaps are huge now, and not just between classes, but within the same class - between players. Example, two hunters I play, both exactly the same way, where one has everything more or less maxed out, and the other is just a landscape mule in landscape gear with LI's about half way done. The difference between them both is more than significant. I wouldn't ever expect the weaker hunter to jump into the instanced content that the main one does, but, nor would I expect her to have a hard time covering landscape. It's not hard, not much in the way of danger out there, but when it takes 10-15 (sometimes more) hits, and/or kiting to kill a basic mob, it kinda ruins the fun. I wasn't here for SoA days, but Angmar was still very much a fellowship area for most part when I began playing. I remember myself and three other level 39 friends doing some of the quests there, and they were tough, but fun and enjoyable and nothing like what my mule alt is experiencing. Challenge is good, but tedium for the sake of it - not so much.

[jokor]

I agree landscape area are pain. I can't questing alone in this old area. That's why i prefer avoid it and buy a valar. New update improved them so much.

[WorrBinpike]

• Abandonment of old systems - You stopped care about, epic battles, skirmishes, mounted combat, crafting, world bosses, allegiance system... did i forget something? Many of these things are easy fix.. While we are stuck with 4 instances for several months, you didn't think of scaling some other systems to make your players have more things to do? Nope, you just make everything useless, leaving 4 instances as endgame content for months.
• Abandonment of fellowship maneuvers - This was another tactical element to group play, it's a shame that you never revived this feature.

I really hope they never update/Change epic battles. These are ALL (except Pelargir, which is a bit of fun) really bad content. Never touch them again, they can die. Same for Mounted Combat. I guess at least for mounted combat we can be sure that they never touch that again.

World Bosses should be easy to update, same for skirmishes (loot wise). Why not just update loot in skirmishes so that its worth again to play. I remember back in the days playing skirmishes with 12 players wasn't that bad. This is content already there, and to me it seems easy to make them worth playing again.

Crafting is another thing. Till level 75 crafting was really good, and then it got worser and worser with every update. I still haven't done the 200k Guild stage, because there isn't much to craft with (ok, beside that i still don't bought MM ;P ).

Fellowship Manouvres is a thing. I think this should easy to update and make them rewarding again using them. Leveling a burglar, and seeing some skills who are only to get fellowship manouvres and they are useless nowadays.

I guess most players don't agree, but Draigoch imho was a lot of fun (and impossible to do without a burglar). To bad it has the same bugs then years ago. Scale Draigoch please.