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

[Bezmer]

People will learn and adapt. The sky is not falling. This is the sort of thing that counts as 'change', and people don't like change despite being remarkably adaptable creatures. The more positive we keep our outlook on this, the happier we will all collectively be. So chin up; your smile will chase your storm away.

While this is most certainly true, it doesn't mean that the mechanic is not bad, broken, and unnecessary.

[maxjenius]

A few complain on the forums, but thousands are moaning like hell about it in game! Just because you have no idea what other players are saying you come out with this stupid comment?

You really know how to make a cogent argument.

I wrote a complaint on the forum, I am one person, but I am reporting about what over a hundred of my kinsmen are complaining about

I call BS on that assertion.

[Lohi]

I can't think of a single piece of Rohan content where you would ever not being doing DPS or healing.

Tough war bands? Ie, you split up the fight with some poeple fighting the boss and others on the adds.

Or Ancient Tomb which is a big maze, but slow going because you have lots of things to fight. You can do it solo but boy would it be a lot more fun with 2 or 3 people, split up and everyone take on their own target to speed it up. But you take away much less XP this way and more important much less in the way of slayer deeds (thus you have to go back later and grind if you want the virtues).

Yes you will mostly do DPS. But these rules require you to DPS exactly the same target, and make sure that you do not accidentally kill a target before others in your group have tapped it. It also encourages you to tap and then move on before the enemy is dead, tap things as fast as you can and then clean up later.

And people just like to do fellowships, period! Some people are here as husband and wife and want to be in a fellowship. A burglar or guardian should not be penalized because a hunter spouse manages to one-shot everything. Just because it is all soloable does not mean you have to solo it all. Being in a group should not be discouraged, and these Rohan-only tapping rules seem to discourage being in a fellowship.

[Haradim]

The group aspect of open tapping that's discussed here just feels awfully out of place in LOTRO, where classes are acknowledged and expected to have multiple productive roles that do not involve DPS or healing.

Instead it's something I would expect to see in a Diablo-style ARPG, where everyone gears up for damage+survivability and hacks away at everything that moves. I'd hate to see LOTRO gameplay reduced to this.

That is exactly how most landscape content works, though: burn through as many mobs as fast as possible. Elite, non-elite, it doesn't matter so long as you (and whomever you are with) can kill it fast enough to not actually need specific duties.

Things change with Mounted Combat, though, where there isn't as much of an, "I just stand here and heal\buff; that is it" role. You are expected to be riding around and using a greater breadth of abilities, partially because you simply don't have the library of actions your normal skillset gives, and various skills do numerous things.

[Rakshilady]

With as much discussion as this issue has generated I'm a bit surprised and also a little distressed that there has been (to my knowledge) no response what-so-ever from Turbine! This issue needs their input.

I feel that this new change (IF I'm understanding it correctly) does real damage to the heart and soul of this game, which is FELLOWSHIPPING. I'm not saying I don't play solo... I do more often than not. But this is a game that flows from the work of a great man and has always honored that spirit by (among other things) making all things equal in a 'Fellowship'. If I nail a mob, my fellowship shares equally in the spoils. That's how we survive as we fight the war to free Middle-earth. This isn't any other game.. this is LOTRO. We should, in my opinion, be accountable to a different and higher standard. If we're not... we're just any other dungeons and dragons MMO. This new function should NOT apply to Fellowship play. Aragorn would not approve!

for what it's worth.

[Trusilver]

MOST people don't use the forums unless they have an issue with something.

My girlfriend and I SHOULD be out doing new content right now, but we aren't. Why? Because we actually enjoy grouping our characters together rather than soloing, and this moronic new game mechanic has turned what was before a fun and enjoyable experience into an annoyance. I have to lead every single fight with my weakest attacks to make sure she can tag every mob... and then we both find ourselves doing tab,attack,tab,attack,tab,atta ck and then I, as a hunter, spend the rest the fight tanking at close range, attempting to manage aggro to keep them from overwhelming her loremaster.

An expansion that we have been looking forward to for months just turned out to be a total disappointment, all over this.

[Bezmer]

That is exactly how most landscape content works, though: burn through as many mobs as fast as possible. Elite, non-elite, it doesn't matter so long as you (and whomever you are with) can kill it fast enough to not actually need specific duties.

Things change with Mounted Combat, though, where there isn't as much of an, "I just stand here and heal\buff; that is it" role. You are expected to be riding around and using a greater breadth of abilities, partially because you simply don't have the library of actions your normal skillset gives, and various skills do numerous things.

I understand that fellowship roles are situational, and that this is less of an issue in landscape content. However, even in landscape classes with strong AoE skills and high DPS are now at a particular advantage. I don't think this is good game design.

The question boils down to whether they plan to introduce this mechanic from here on (which will have serious implications), or it's just a one-shot experiment.

[Lohi]

I think the first problem to address is to put together content on landscape that is actually worth taking a diverse fellowship into.

You don't need content that is tough enough for a fellowship to want a fellowship!

- Spouses and friends will want to group together. This is normal for people with spouses and friends who play the game. Are they all supposed to go out and solo side by side, or instead group up in a fellowship and work together side by side?

- Not everyone is a great player. Some players have a rough time even on what some people call "face roll" fights. With mounted combat this is even more of an issue, some players are going to be good at it, others are going to spend half the fight trying to figure out how to get around a tree. Some of the areas are tightly packed with enemies, such as orc camps. Technically all soloable but very tough for some players and having just one extra player really helps out.

- You see one of your kin playing in the same area you are, and you naturally (for some of us) invite them.

- Being in a fellowship can reduce the amount of time you spend doing quests (when your outside of Rohan anyway).

- Maybe you want to be able to take on slightly tougher stuff. Pull 4 or more enemies at once and burn them down, while getting credit for all of them.

[Celestrata]

So, just so everyone is aware, we've passed along the thoughts and opinions here to the team, and they will be discussing it. However, the current implementation of the system (the "you must contribute in order to get credit, regardless of fellowship") is intended by design. But, they will be looking at it and discussing it due to the conversations that have come up here.

With that said, I'm going to move this thread into the suggestions forum, as it is a suggestion to change a current aspect of the game. Everyone is certainly encouraged to continue to add their thoughts and opinions in this thread, so we can continue to keep track of the conversation.

[podgie_bear]

You really know how to make a cogent argument.


I call BS on that assertion.

Yes well if you perhaps talked to other players who are actually playing and experiencing how this affects them and how they play their characters you would know better. Then you might not come out with highly inaccurate and sweeping statement about what you seem to know and that makes everyone who is actually playing the game and encountering these problems wrong. Or maybe just because you don't care about other players so long as you get what you want, than that is enough to keep you happy, but some of us actually cooperate in our gameplay and hate seeing friends that we play with on a regular basis get shafted by a stupid change introduced to correct what most people didn't find to be a problem anyway and which has now caused massive problems for a lot of players, totally changing how they seem to be expected to play classes that they are expert in using as parts of a coherent group. You may be happy with a boring "everyone pile in", Hack'n'Slash approach to gameplay, but some of us have learned to expect better than that!

[maxjenius]

So, just so everyone is aware, we've passed along the thoughts and opinions here to the team, and they will be discussing it. However, the current implementation of the system (the "you must contribute in order to get credit, regardless of fellowship") is intended by design. But, they will be looking at it and discussing it due to the conversations that have come up here.

With that said, I'm going to move this thread into the suggestions forum, as it is a suggestion to change a current aspect of the game. Everyone is certainly encouraged to continue to add their thoughts and opinions in this thread, so we can continue to keep track of the conversation.

The "Official discussions" forum has had a thread about this since 9/5, and the replies I read seem to be mostly in favor of the feature. I would not like to see open tapping scrapped. If the "tapping entity" were made to be the entire Fellowship, that'd be fine. But in non-open tapping areas, debuffing a monster does not tap it, so why should it be counted as a contribution in open tapping?

[Bezmer]

So, just so everyone is aware, we've passed along the thoughts and opinions here to the team, and they will be discussing it. However, the current implementation of the system (the "you must contribute in order to get credit, regardless of fellowship") is intended by design. But, they will be looking at it and discussing it due to the conversations that have come up here.

With that said, I'm going to move this thread into the suggestions forum, as it is a suggestion to change a current aspect of the game. Everyone is certainly encouraged to continue to add their thoughts and opinions in this thread, so we can continue to keep track of the conversation.

I'm sure everyone here appreciates the feedback.

The concept, "contribute to get kill", is valid on its own merit. The problem is it's hard to quantify "contribution", as it takes many forms that do not involve damage or healing (buffing, debuffing, off-tanking, off-healing... even DPS on another mob that's damaging your tank; I'm sure there are more examples). I feel ignoring these diminishes the complexity of the fellowship experience.

[Damojo]

I don't think that's an issue for most people. However if you are in a group you are actively being discouraged from using smart group skills and instead encouraged to focus on DPS. If you are in a group all working on exactly the same quest then everyone in the group will finish the quest at a different rate. Remember how frustrating it is in the past when you're in a group and everyone has their 10 boar tusks but you only found 5? Now it'll be frustrating for everyone in your group to have their 15 orc kills done for the quest while you're still at 5.

I can see the issue, its just I don't really see a solution to this for fellowships other than removing them from open tapping. Surely nobody is expecting every fellowship member to get the same rewards?

Imagine three fellowships each with six members, each one having a hunter. If those three hunters all fire at a single salamander, either by accident or design, they will kill it. The other 15 fellowship members have done precisely nothing, but will get credit for a salamander kill, XP, and presumably any extra drops too, like the chance of a blue IXP pill. If there's another hunter on the other side of the pond, solo, he kills a salamander and gets the same reward, but has done more than any of the fellowship members. Not acceptable, in my view.

So, the loot rules for the fellowship could be reverted to pre-rohan, the three hunters fire, one hits first and gets the kill, his/her fellowship gets credit and rolls on loot as before. The other two fellowships get nothing. Problem solved, or maybe not?

The open tap flag is set on the target, not the attacker. What happens if the solo player hits a salamander, and then one of the fellowship members hits it? Or vice-versa, the solo player hits what he/she thinks is an open mob, but it has actually been tagged as belonging to a fellowship?

It's a complete mess, and I don't think my musings have even scratched the surface of potential problems. If push comes to shove and Turbine responds to a mass movement from "groupers" to change this, I can see them drastically reducing the numbers of, or maybe even removing, open tapping. A step forward? For groups maybe, bit of a kick in the teeth for us solo players. We go back to standing in line while the fellowships dominate each area, until they move on as every member has their quota. Been there so many times, low-lands, bree, dunland. And frankly I don't like it, why should I wait while all 5, 6 ,7, 8 members of a fellowship get to kill the boss? I'm a player too.

And please, let's stop mentioning "that other game" that has open tapping. I have just read two reviews both of which state you need to do 5-10% of the damage done to a mob to get any credit, never mind a heal or a simple tap. Add in the fact that game is essentially class-less, and I don't really see how the two can be compared in any meaningful way.

I feel that this new change (IF I'm understanding it correctly) does real damage to the heart and soul of this game, which is FELLOWSHIPPING. I'm not saying I don't play solo... I do more often than not. But this is a game that flows from the work of a great man and has always honored that spirit by (among other things) making all things equal in a 'Fellowship'. If I nail a mob, my fellowship shares equally in the spoils. That's how we survive as we fight the war to free Middle-earth. This isn't any other game.. this is LOTRO. We should, in my opinion, be accountable to a different and higher standard. If we're not... we're just any other dungeons and dragons MMO. This new function should NOT apply to Fellowship play. Aragorn would not approve!

Perhaps all the solo players should be banned then? Just leave all the group players, obviously we solo bods don't appreciate Tolkien's work as we don't group for everything. Maybe we should be relegated to a "lower standard" game?

[Trusilver]

So, just so everyone is aware, we've passed along the thoughts and opinions here to the team, and they will be discussing it. However, the current implementation of the system (the "you must contribute in order to get credit, regardless of fellowship") is intended by design. But, they will be looking at it and discussing it due to the conversations that have come up here.

With that said, I'm going to move this thread into the suggestions forum, as it is a suggestion to change a current aspect of the game. Everyone is certainly encouraged to continue to add their thoughts and opinions in this thread, so we can continue to keep track of the conversation.

I'm totally okay with open tagging, but the old fellowship system worked just fine for years... there was no legitimate reason to fix a system that wasn't broken.

[podgie_bear]

So, just so everyone is aware, we've passed along the thoughts and opinions here to the team, and they will be discussing it. However, the current implementation of the system (the "you must contribute in order to get credit, regardless of fellowship") is intended by design. But, they will be looking at it and discussing it due to the conversations that have come up here.

With that said, I'm going to move this thread into the suggestions forum, as it is a suggestion to change a current aspect of the game. Everyone is certainly encouraged to continue to add their thoughts and opinions in this thread, so we can continue to keep track of the conversation.

So it was deliberately decided that CC, Buff and Debuff are not contributions? You are deliberately changing the whole basis of group/fellowship play and actively discouraging teamwork that has been the hallmark of this game for years, basically voiding the skills that some of us have spent years learning how to use effectiviely to support our team in group play? That is a hell of a big change to spring on us with no advance warning and expect us to accept meekly!

[Elfheart]

From the CSTM Open Tapping Beta Video: http://casualstrolltomordor.com/2012...tapping-video/
Here, they clearly show how the mechanic worked both inside and outside of fellowship. So it is not a bug, but WAI.

We can, of course, argue about whether this change is a good thing or not. I think it presents some problems beyond what has already been addressed. My main is a hunter and my wife plays a minstrel, if we are deeding low-level creatures together, I may be one-shotting them before she has a chance to do anything to help me, so I'll get all the credit and she'll get none. Turbine should revise this rule so that all fellowship members share in the tapping of all targets.

I agree. As a burglar with one long cooldown aoe and no ranged skills to speak of this change makes me a poorer group player. Instead of helping the fellowship I now must dash around and try to tag as many things as possible so I can get credit. It will also make me not want to group for low level slayer deeds since I will not get credit for things my friends will inevitably one shot. So if they don't want to change the mechanic then they need to give all classes the use of a bow and a short cooldown aoe skill. Also debuffing needs to count as a contribution. It is helping the person killing it and deserves equal credit.

[Lohi]

In any event, someone mentioning Limlight Gorge and trying to extrapolate open tapping problems from it is not very compelling.

It is relevant if this Rohan tapping rule is intended to be the rule for all new zones in the future. If true then never can we have something similar to Limlight Gorge in the future.

Most people feel Limlight Gorge is a very tough area, however there are players who feel that a crowded orc camp in Rohan is a tough area.

In every zone since the beginning of the game there have been players who have grouped up in small fellowships to get stuff done even though it was never technically required. We've had 5 years of experience known that having a small group of players can be a lot of fun even when doing solo quests.

[maxjenius]

I'm sure everyone here appreciates the feedback.

The concept, "contribute to get kill", is valid on its own merit. The problem is it's hard to quantify "contribution", as it takes many forms that do not involve damage or healing (buffing, debuffing, off-tanking, off-healing... even DPS on another mob that's damaging your tank; I'm sure there are more examples). I feel ignoring these diminishes the complexity of the fellowship experience.

How many groups of 6 do you think are out there on the RoR landscape killing monsters? As a practical matter, most people solo or duo this stuff. Some people make it sound like it's going to be a constant, Herculean chore to make sure every single group member taps every single monster in every single encounter.

I really think what chaps most people's hides is that they just can't stand the notion of others "freeloading" on their "hard work."

It is relevant if this Rohan tapping rule is intended to be the rule for all new zones in the future. If true then never can we have something similar to Limlight Gorge in the future.

No one knows how open tapping would work in Limlight Gorge or a hypothetically similar area. They can only speculate. Empty speculation is pointless.

It will also make me not want to group for low level slayer deeds since I will not get credit for things my friends will inevitably one shot.

Low-level slayer deeds? What are you talking about? What low-level slayer deeds are affected by open tapping?

[Trusilver]

I really think what chaps most people's hides is that they just can't stand the notion of others "freeloading" on their "hard work."

Which is even more laughable because the core mechanic of the open tapping system encourages people to freeload off others, hitting enemies that are already nearly down.

[Haradim]

So it was deliberately decided that CC, Buff and Debuff are not contributions? You are deliberately changing the whole basis of group/fellowship play and actively discouraging teamwork that has been the hallmark of this game for years, basically voiding the skills that some of us have spent years learning how to use effectiviely to support our team in group play? That is a hell of a big change to spring on us with no advance warning and expect us to accept meekly!

To be fair, I don't think most CC\Buff\Debuff effects have ever been, technically, "contributions"; that is, they do not consistently count for tapping, targeting, or threat table calculation, which is formerly what dictated who a monster was credited to. It just didn't matter previously because group credit made technical contribution irrelevant.

[maxjenius]

Which is even more laughable because the core mechanic of the open tapping system encourages people to freeload off others, hitting enemies that are already nearly down.

The "freeloading" argument is a total non-starter.

[Starrywisdom]

So it was deliberately decided that CC, Buff and Debuff are not contributions? You are deliberately changing the whole basis of group/fellowship play and actively discouraging teamwork that has been the hallmark of this game for years, basically voiding the skills that some of us have spent years learning how to use effectiviely to support our team in group play? That is a hell of a big change to spring on us with no advance warning and expect us to accept meekly!

Couldn't agree more, this sums up the situation 100% I can get behind the idea that they don't want people easily 'mooching kills' or allowing dual-boxers easier time to power level. But it's just EXP, it effects more of the normal players then it would any of those other folks. Discouraging people to play a class a specific way, especially the large group of us whom static our way through content, is absolutely atrocious.

[Deorulf]

Really? People play under instance/raid role restrictions while questing? I group with a healer class when I group, and we both attack the mob because in 98% of all encounters heals are simply unnecessary. If he only healed I'd yell at him to help out a little bit.

Further, since Everquest it's seemed odd to me that there would be two stalwart adventurers attacking an orc camp, and one would not help the other cut down the ranks simply because of a tapping system.

I'm sure the system will be refined to iron out the nuances, just like the mounted system will be.

Seems to me that this community is very eager to light its collective hair on fire and run around screaming at the slightest provocation. Chill, guys.

[Bezmer]

Further, since Everquest it's seemed odd to me that there would be two stalwart adventurers attacking an orc camp, and one would not help the other cut down the ranks simply because of a tapping system.

You are, once again, miscasting the issue here. This is not a thread about open tapping. This is a thread about people needing to tap in a fellowship.

[Deorulf]

You are, once again, miscasting the issue here. This is not a thread about open tapping. This is a thread about people needing to tap in a fellowship.

See the first paragraph in my post.