The Death of group play? (Open tapping/contribution discussion)

[Sir_Thorblod]

Just started questing Rohan with a fellow Guardian and I'm pretty shocked at how group unfriendly the open-tapping is!
Now if my fellow kills an enemy I don't get a chance to tap, I don't get credited for the kill and vice versa... so what's the point in group play now? This is ridiculous! This is supposed to be an MMO ffs!
Guess it fits well with the friend list not working too...

Turbine, I am disappoint!

To make matters worse, as a Guardian every time I mount (my normal mount, not warsteed either), my stance gets deactivated... this might seem like a small matter, but now Protection also gets switched off because of that and every time we dismount to engage new enemies we have to activate it again... this gets annoying VERY quickly...

[Bhoris_they_spider]

Well if you don't help to kill a mob why should you get xp for it?

[Sir_Thorblod]

Well if you don't help to kill a mob why should you get xp for it?

because that's how a group works... you might not kill that specific mob, but you work together... also there are classes who don't have aoe... imagine a burglar questing with a champion... the champ will just kill everything with raging blades while the burglar might manage to hit one or two mobs... and the champ gets credit for the group, the burg for one and then the champ has to wait for the burg to finish his quest... that's not how questing together is supposed to work... it discourages grouping while questing, which is a stupid thing to do in an MMO...

[Vilost]

Now if my fellow kills an enemy I don't get a chance to tap, I don't get credited for the kill and vice versa... so what's the point in group play now?

You're saying in a fellow, you all have to do some damage to the mob? Obviously I haven't tried any of this yet. I just wanted to make sure I understood what you're saying You've tried it I take it.

That sounds like a goof to me. At least if I'm reading you rightly. I didn't see it on known issues either so anyway I'd definitely suggest bugging it. =/

[Sir_Thorblod]

Sounds like a two boxer just found out something that ruined his day.

totally missing the point and totally wrong, but ok, whatever you say...

[Thorgrum]

because that's how a group works... you might not kill that specific mob, but you work together... also there are classes who don't have aoe... imagine a burglar questing with a champion... the champ will just kill everything with raging blades while the burglar might manage to hit one or two mobs... and the champ gets credit for the group, the burg for one and then the champ has to wait for the burg to finish his quest... that's not how questing together is supposed to work... it discourages grouping while questing, which is a stupid thing to do in an MMO...

But your talking about killing a specific mob right? What did you do exactly to help in its death? The update was pretty clear weeks ago about open tapping:

Step 3:
We are making all the monsters in Rohan use the new open-tapping rules (aka tapping doesn’t exist). If you contribute to killing a monster in Rohan you will get full kill, deed, quest, and XP credit as if you killed the mob solo.

That was from the dev diary, what was your contribution to killing the monster?

[Sir_Thorblod]

You're saying in a fellow, you all have to do some damage to the mob?

exactly.
If I hit a mob and my fellow doesn't, he doesn't get credit for the kill (no XP, no loot, no count for the quest) and the same for me if I don't hit his mob. It's like questing in a group is completely pointless now, you might as well just play solo, that way you don't have to wait for your fellow to get his mobs if you hit more mobs before him and vice versa... just stupid in an MMO...

[Bhoris_they_spider]

because that's how a group works... you might not kill that specific mob, but you work together... also there are classes who don't have aoe... imagine a burglar questing with a champion... the champ will just kill everything with raging blades while the burglar might manage to hit one or two mobs... and the champ gets credit for the group, the burg for one and then the champ has to wait for the burg to finish his quest... that's not how questing together is supposed to work... it discourages grouping while questing, which is a stupid thing to do in an MMO...

No that's just how group play worked in the past, Rohan has changed that and it is not a big deal. It should only be a problem for people looking to exploit the system. The mobs still count towards quests and deeds right? Sounds like someone just wants to pick up a load of quests and go on follow while the other 'person' does the work.

In response to your point, you are playing with a guardian so AoE and tagging mobs should be a non-issue. If you were playing with a burg they could trait dust in the eyes for some AoE.

[DanteIL]

Yea my understanding of open-tapping is that it applies to people *not* in your fellowship. That is, you don't have to be grouped with someone in order to both get credit for the kill, as long as you each do some damage (or heal).

If what you are saying is that you *were* fellowshipped up with someone and not getting credit for each other's kills, then that is a different problem and is not the way it is supposed to work, as far as I know.

[maxjenius]

Sounds like a two boxer just found out something that ruined his day.

I don't get it (I know what two-boxing is), but it sounds funny and I generally like your posts.

So yee haw.

[Sir_Thorblod]

But your talking about killing a specific mob right? What did you do exactly to help in its death? The update was pretty clear weeks ago about open tapping:



That was from the dev diary, what was your contribution to killing the monster?

again, what makes my point so hard to understand? Are you guys always only questing solo? The point of a fellowship is to help each other... if I kill a mob, my fellow still gets credit for it, because I'm doing it for the fellowship and not for myself! That's how group play always worked and should work!

[Thorgrum]

If what you are saying is that you *were* fellowshipped up with someone and not getting credit for each other's kills, then that is a different problem and is not the way it is supposed to work, as far as I know.

You are misinformed then.

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...ing-with-Rohan

Thats the dev diary:

Step 3:
We are making all the monsters in Rohan use the new open-tapping rules (aka tapping doesn’t exist). If you contribute to killing a monster in Rohan you will get full kill, deed, quest, and XP credit as if you killed the mob solo.

It's very specific (I highlighted the relevant part), there is nothing confusing about this and was posted 09/05. You people are 40 days late, and some XP short.

[Sir_Thorblod]

No that's just how group play worked in the past, Rohan has changed that and it is not a big deal. It should only be a problem for people looking to exploit the system. The mobs still count towards quests and deeds right? Sounds like someone just wants to pick up a load of quests and go on follow while the other 'person' does the work.

In response to your point, you are playing with a guardian so AoE and tagging mobs should be a non-issue. If you were playing with a burg they could trait dust in the eyes for some AoE.

how is playing in a group "exploiting the system"? That's ridiculous... you obviously have no idea what group play means... and no, they don't count towards quests and deeds, that's the point...

Yea my understanding of open-tapping is that it applies to people *not* in your fellowship. That is, you don't have to be grouped with someone in order to both get credit for the kill, as long as you each do some damage (or heal).

If what you are saying is that you *were* fellowshipped up with someone and not getting credit for each other's kills, then that is a different problem and is not the way it is supposed to work, as far as I know.

finally someone who gets the point, thank you!

[Thorgrum]

again, what makes my point so hard to understand? Are you guys always only questing solo? The point of a fellowship is to help each other... if I kill a mob, my fellow still gets credit for it, because I'm doing it for the fellowship and not for myself! That's how group play always worked and should work!

What makes your point hard to understand is what specifically the dev diary says. Either you didnt read it, or you dont like what it says. Im going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are just unhappy with the change but your issue has been known and discussed for over a month.

[maxjenius]

again, what makes my point so hard to understand? Are you guys always only questing solo? The point of a fellowship is to help each other... if I kill a mob, my fellow still gets credit for it, because I'm doing it for the fellowship and not for myself! That's how group play always worked and should work!

You're still not making it clear what your problem is. As others have posted, you hit a monster, you get XP for it. As someone else pointed out, if XP is not being awarded properly in a fellowship, maybe there's some kind of bug.

And the point of "group play" is to play as a group, which, with open tapping, no longer necessarily means forming a fellowship. So, again as others have pointed out, it improves group play by making it more friendly to do ad hoc group play.

[JaironKalach]

Sir_Thorbold seems to be making the following point:

Before Open Tapping, you used to be able to form a fellowship with someone and while both of you tapped and killed completely different mobs as long as you were in range, you would be given credit. Now, this is no longer possible, as you both have to tap the same mobs to both get credit. It enforces a sort of focus-fire approach, instead of people working in parallel.


Whether it *should* work that way or not is up for debate. I've played other games that didn't work that way and did not feel like it was misbehaving.

[koifishkid]

Just started questing Rohan with a fellow Guardian and I'm pretty shocked at how group unfriendly the open-tapping is!
Now if my fellow kills an enemy I don't get a chance to tap, I don't get credited for the kill and vice versa... so what's the point in group play now? This is ridiculous! This is supposed to be an MMO ffs!
Guess it fits well with the friend list not working too...

Turbine, I am disappoint!

To make matters worse, as a Guardian every time I mount (my normal mount, not warsteed either), my stance gets deactivated... this might seem like a small matter, but now Protection also gets switched off because of that and every time we dismount to engage new enemies we have to activate it again... this gets annoying VERY quickly...

Those both seem like bugs. You should file a bug report.

[Bhoris_they_spider]

how is playing in a group "exploiting the system"? That's ridiculous... you obviously have no idea what group play means... and no, they don't count towards quests and deeds, that's the point...

Get a grip please. I don't think Turbine has defined exactly what 'group play' is so definitions will vary from person to person. You can already complete a quest or deed by being on follow and contributing absolutely zero towards killing the mobs so you can already gain a lot by doing nothing. It is hard to say if the current system is intended or not but it is such a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. Sounds to me like someone and their partner in crime intend to level to 85 by just killing mobs without buying the expansion.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

I remember this being reported as a bug. Guess they didn't bother fixing it.

It's looking like the same thing that happened with Rise of Isengard release - things reported in beta weren't acknowledged or fixed before release.

[Darkheart06]

Whoa, I can't believe people are this dense...

The Champ/Burg example illustrates it perfectly. The Champ raging blades everything to death while the Burg is plinking away at one mob. Champ gets credit for all the mobs he hit, Burg only gets credit for the one mob he was able to attack. Or maybe it's two people taking on two different mobs. Again, what is the point of grouping now?

A terrible oversight that has no justification.

[DanteIL]

It's very specific (I highlighted the relevant part), there is nothing confusing about this and was posted 09/05. You people are 40 days late, and some XP short.

Actually there *is* something confusing about this -- as illustrated in this very thread. Again, my understanding is that the open-tapping changes described in that dev diary are about what happens if you are fighting with someone who is *not* in your group. That's what 'tapping' has ALWAYS been about -- what happens when someone you are not fellowed with has already tapped the creature, thus denying you the possibility of getting credit for it. There has never been any issues about tapping *within* a fellowship -- once one fellowship member hits a mob, then it is effectively 'tapped' for all fellowship members. The confusion is apparently whether or not the new open-tapping system requires people >inside< your fellowship to also do damage etc., in order to get credit, despite the more general open-ness to tapping outside your fellowship. My guess is that the answer should be "no." I didn't test this specifically in Beta, though (and apparently it was flagged as a bug).

EDIT: the reason why I care about this is because my kin has a lot of fun doing "Deed Nights" in which we get a group together and knock out slayer deeds. It is incredibly efficient having a bunch of people killing things in parallel in a small area. It will be much less fun if we all have to gang up on each mob in order to get credit.

[Wilberting]

While everyone here ridicules people on "follow" I can only hope they had some yellow Loremasters in the Beta. Because this change could be the end of them.

The yellow Loremaster (Ancient Master) does not do much damage nor much healing in a fellowship. He debuffs, Stuns and roots everything in sight (I think 7 debuff skills, 2 roots, 2 stuns, 1 1/2 Mezz) and then maybe (if the Champs haven't killed everything till then) starts to apply Burning Embers. If I understand some comments in this and another thread (which talked about a significant damage/healing contribution), that means no XP/kill/loot for the Loremaster.

Yellow Captains might have a similar problem except to a lesser extend. They can do more damage and have their group-heal-on-mob-death skill which might bring them over the contribution limit.

[Nansen]

I see the point of the OP:

If a single target class (like Burg) fellows with an AoE class (like champ) then the burg has to spend his time tapping and sufficiently damaging all mobs before the champ mows them down else he doesn't get credit and loot for those he didn't reach.

Probably not too much of a problem with a boss mob plus adds, but more of one with groups of trash mobs.

Before open tapping, the Burg would still receive credit and loot share for all mobs the champ kills while in the fellowship with him.

Hope that clarifies the point some more.

Can't try it out myself since I can't get into the game because of the "Examine Programs" problem ...

[podgie_bear]

This is exactly why I said open tapping was a bad idea and totally antisocial for groups, but no-one would listen, they all thought it was the best thing ever!

Put simply, if 2-3 players group in a fellowship, let's say a Guardian, a Hunter and a healer spec Minstrel. The Guardian tanks and gets credit for tapping mobs, the Hunter does ranged DPS and gets credit for tapping mobs, the Healer keeps healing the Guardian and gets no credit for tapping mobs. So the Guardian and Hunter both get xp and loot while the Minstrel gets naff all and never will unless he quits being a healer, goes into Warspeach and taps mobs while letting the Guardian die if necessary! A totally antisocial approach to MMOs, a reason to never group up in fellowships and turns the game into a Solo only game with no need for healer classes in the future!

So basically if you are a healer, you're screwed, welcome to the future of Lotro!

[Reapor]

I see what the Op is getting at here, open tapping is fine for soloers,

but if when in a Fellowship all parties must damage the target to get credit, what about the Minstrel or the healing RK, if a Fellowship takes on a large warband does this mean the Minstrel MUST damage the target to get credit for it.

I am also firmly of the opinion that whilst in a fellowship, all parties must recieve credit for any and all kills, there are plenty of times a Tank maybe on the main mob and the other members kill adds.

Obviously this maybe a bug and needs to be reported anyways.