Are you satisfied with Helm's Deep expansion?

[Melunielsigh]

It's been 8 days after release and many players have actually hit lv95 and completed big battles.

So I wonder did HD gave you sense of satisfaction?

Are you happy with it? Was it boring , enjoyable or just too easy? You disappointed?

My opinion:

Lets go with positive things

+ Beautiful landscape - best so far esp Eastfold. Helm's deep look is captured nicely.
+ Class trait system overhaul / some minor improvements in PVE ( craftin,travel, etc )
+ I feel so small in big battles!!! ( only thing )
+ Middle-earth feels more alive

Bonus update

-Decent Music imo ( bad to many )
-Class trait revamp , again many do not like it

Negative

- Ultra easy difficulty overall - No challenge at all.
- Big battles are boring and not exciting - Yea go AFK, Don't die. After 20 min Battle won! Woho!
- Completely broken PVMP / Lack of new gear for freeps.Creeps feel ilke they need skill revamp , too little CD , esp BA.
- Lack of new instances/raids - Not cool.
- Mounted combat is joke and dull ( 1 shooting mobs )
- HD performance overall ( freezes,crashes,lag,skill delay , worst so far ) horrible FPS drop even on high end machines 16 -30 FPS. Almost non believable.
- Some items at STORE F example Gift of Valar lvl 50 instant.
- Seal grind for new gear - Ridiculous 1 piece 188 seals. 1 instance 7 seals.
- Missing quests and npcs
-"Tiresome" and boring re-grinding of past now old instances like SG,GB etc..



Final score: 4/10 Bad. And I was been generous.

Weakest expansion yet.

What about you?

And yes this is semi- Q_Q thread coming from older player since It's shame how

Game went so low...I had high expectations with Helm's Deep but more I played it more disappointment it build.

Sigh.

Premium forever.

[kickman77]

What Big Battles is everyone running where you can go afk for 20 minutes and still get rewards or not die? I mean seriously some people are really over exaggerating or I am playing a different game. If you do get a reward while afk it is probably a useless Iron or #### Bronze medal.

Anyways am I happy

Yes.

Landscape is amazing
Quest: Most are engaging some or boring
Mobs: Meh.. little to easy for me but i expect a dps nerf somewhere down the line
Epic Battles: Some are buggy but I still enjoy them. They are not the typical stand there and fight type system. To get the good rewards you actually have to do other things such as repair stuff and issue commands. Took some time to get used to but since I have reached rank 3 on my officer ad engineer lines man things are amazing.
PvP: Yeah the armor is needed... and yes creeps do need more than what they got.. especially if they dont nerf the dps
No Instances: Doesnt bother me that there aren;t any classic style stand there and kill things raids. I like the Epic Battles system and see it potential.
The Seal Grind: Again makes you want too work. Classic raids and Skirmish raids give seals. If they were being given out like candy people would be crying they had all the phat loots already and had nothing to do. So Turbine is caught between 6 rocks and 7 Hard Places with that. Also ALL of that gear drops in Epic Battles with platinum Rewards, so you honestly don;t need to grind the seals. It boils down to a choose your poison. Run the battles and get better for better rewards, or grind the seals.
Performance Issues: Well, like every previous expansion I think they will die down within the next week or 2. Servers are overloaded with people playing and will calm down shortly. I have not had any major issues thank god, but I also lowered my graphics expecting this.
Store Items: Do I like the Auto level thing... Not really but I can see the need for it, and hey if other people want to waste money.. why should I stop them. It is not effecting me if they do.
Mounted Combat: I am 50/50 on this. Some days I love it, others im like meh.

So overall lets see

I will give my personal rating on each expansion
Mines of Moria: 8.5
Siege of mirkwood: 6.5
Rise of isengard: 7.0
Riders of Rohan: 7.5
Helms Deep: 7.5

[Skigorn]

I agree, weakest xpack yet. I played for a couple hours since launch but haven't logged back on since Saturday. It's too easy and it's boring. Landscape is nice but it's not enough to keep me around.

My ratings...

Trait trees: 3/10
ezmode: 1/10
Landscape: 8/10
Big Battles: 1/10 (I truly hate that this is our new end game)

Overall: 2/10

I'm going to shelve this one to see what adjustments are made in the coming months. In the meantime I'm directing my cash to another game. I'm extremely grateful that I didn't actually pay for this xpack, thanks to my lifetime TP allowance.

[Wilkor]

Overall and in the long-term I would have to say no. Big Skirmishes are already getting old and unfortunately I can't see myself getting more interested in this mini-game system as time goes on. The environment and landscapes were nice but not something I'm going to spend a lot of time riding around and around. This leaves me with playing my creep out in the Moors and given freeps at the moment are being very cowardly due to poor management of this system, this is non-existent.

Something I also want to touch on as well is Turbines greed regarding the pricing of the expansion. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn't have split it up into segments as in previous expansions, except for the fact they wanted to milk the greatest possible amount from unsuspecting customers. The quest pack and big battles could have been separated with the epic story still being provided for free-to-play. Turbine's statement that the epic story had to have been tied into it all is complete rubbish. The only part where it even came close to being true was at the very end of the questing line where you were forced into it and anything interesting that you actually saw storywise happened outside of the battles anyway. I'm afraid this is just another example of Turbine spinning things way past the point of integrity to rake in and is leaving me with an increasingly sour taste in my mouth.

[Ratharim]

I'd say that HD is really fully of nice ideas but ruined by rushing and unfinished product to the market.
- Trait trees are not bad by definition but there are too many filler traits, misplaced traits, plain buggy traits, broken balance between the trees (f.e. champion in AoE tree has comparable single target damage to the single-target burst damage oriented tree).
- Trait trees and skillbars... No comment required I think.
- Balance is totally broken - all classes do way too high damage vs. landscape mobs, I hear some people do raids with 6 toons, balance between classes is broken
- PvMP - balance broken, some bugs allow some classes to exploit beyond imagination, missing L95 PvP armour for freeps
- bugs in crafting (missing processing options for some professions, missing new icons, etc.)
- Epic Battles: Vanguard tree is useless, some classes can't effectively dps vs. mobs. Some EB are very hard, some may be finished by launchincg and going afk. Lots of bugs in behaviour of the mobs. Missing maps for EB. Side quests are buggy, when you encounter the quests for the first time it's sometimes totally unclear where to go and what to do.

All the things I wrote above is result of rushing HD. All these things could be fixed in a 2 or 3 months period. Reception would be so much different if HD were be delivered as more polished product. Of course there are always bugs hidden out there, which are discovered only when thousands of people start to use the software. But majority of things I've written above were reported in various beta stages (some were reported in beta 1 and ignored!). Decision of releasing software is always hard, but if the list of critical/important issues is long there should not be other decision than delay.
For me HD is an expansion of wasted potential. There is so much hard work of developers/artists/designers wasted just because the management decided to rush the product. It makes me really sad, cause a lot of things imagined in HD are great. Beautiful, tasteful graphics. General concept of EB is great, side quests are cool (if you finally catch up what to do any no bug hits you). Really, really sad. I hope they catch up with fixpacks to the state in which HD should be released, but some bad taste in my mouth will remain.

[zippy73]

I am a vip have for about 3-4 years
now I have paid for a lot expansions in the past and was happy to do so, but for the lack funds I though I get it after xmas (kids first and all). But to my astonishment, I found I can't do any epics or even lvl my skrim soldier traits until I by the pack I feel quite ripped off. When I have seeing from the other expansion... f2p are able to do quests, epics the only thing they couldn't do was the new instances as a vip im feel very ripped off there should something for us vip even if didn't get expansion we are still paying....

the trait system would being fine if I could find my skills but everytime I change it they move to other places it takes time to find it and im killed or half dead before I find it I don't like my skills everywhere in slot bars i lock then into place I like to know where are and they are in groups it doesn't happen like that so ive had to or should I say relearn it all again

[HoldumDown]

Landscape: 8/10

I don't get all this love for the Helms Deep Landscape. I respect your right to have an opinion but I can only assume most people think "Oh pretty!" without thinking too hard about it. I picture Rohan as mostly open grassland and savanna with stretches of prairie-like farmland in the more temperate regions. Any town with plenty of horses riding through it will not look like a giant herb garden or lavender hillside. I was fearful that one quest in Aldburg might be a "mow the grass" epic.

[Nymphonic]

I have just entered so I will just tell what I've seen so far. I just made it through to Eastwade where I've done a few quests. Eastwade looks amazing. I actually stopped questing just to walk around and sight see. There are horses grazing and walking, and the npcs are actually doing things like the laundry. It really feels alive. Who ever did the landscaping did an awesome job. Great artwork.

On a gameplay note, I was fighting one of the mounted Blackarrows and he kept spinning in circles as I was attacking.

I haven't done the Helm's Deep instance so I'll leave that for other people to talk about.

[trcanberra]

I am a vip have for about 3-4 years
now I have paid for a lot expansions in the past and was happy to do so, but for the lack funds I though I get it after xmas (kids first and all). But to my astonishment, I found I can't do any epics or even lvl my skrim soldier traits until I by the pack I feel quite ripped off. When I have seeing from the other expansion... f2p are able to do quests, epics the only thing they couldn't do was the new instances as a vip im feel very ripped off there should something for us vip even if didn't get expansion we are still paying....

the trait system would being fine if I could find my skills but everytime I change it they move to other places it takes time to find it and im killed or half dead before I find it I don't like my skills everywhere in slot bars i lock then into place I like to know where are and they are in groups it doesn't happen like that so ive had to or should I say relearn it all again

Just wondering how many threads you are going to copy and paste this into? I have no issue with what you wish to say - your post and all- but some new points would be nice to see.

[Glumposneak]

I'm still waiting back from Turbine on my request for a full refund before I contact my credit card and do it that way.

[FromgalTheMinstrel]

I will quote you point by point to follow the same schema. But in general we seem to have opposite tastes:

+ Beautiful landscape - best so far esp Eastfold. Helm's deep look is captured nicely.

I agree.

+ Class trait system overhaul / some minor improvements in PVE ( craftin,travel, etc )

Disagree. The trait trees are strait jackets. It doesnt give you choice. You cannot choose between mastering some specific tasks, or have a broad-although-not-expert skillset, like in real life (or most RPGs).
Instead it let's you choose between Oversuperhypemega-master one brach, or... nothing. They could as well remove the trees and replace it with a toggle with tree values: red, yellow and blue.

+ I feel so small in big battles!!! ( only thing )
+ Middle-earth feels more alive

I agree. The quests tell stories with more soul. The world seems lived in. I am caring about the NPCs. First time since for me since 2008.

Bonus update

-Decent Music imo ( bad to many )

The music is the blandest in the whole game. In Riders of Rohan the music talked about action, riding charges, chants about the eorlingas, something is about to happen and it's gaining speed! And it was unique and distinctive. You can listen to any theme of it and it says "Rohan".
The music in Helms Deep is interchangeable, generic and out of place most of the time. A big war is coming, the end of the world for the peoples of these lands, people are having to flee their homes, the enemies are abroad... and still the music is like one they would put on a spa. I wish they replaced it with the same themes from east rohan.

-Class trait revamp , again many do not like it

Good intention, bad design.
It looks clearly to me that two absolutely different teams worked on the Class Trait Trees and the Epic Battles Promotion Trees. While the Promotion Trees seem to me like a work of art and brilliant design, the Class Trees are like a bunch of vandals with machetes hacking their way into a museum and calling it art.

Negative

- Ultra easy difficulty overall - No challenge at all.

Agree. DPS is out of whack. Healing is out of whack.

- Big battles are boring and not exciting - Yea go AFK, Don't die. After 20 min Battle won! Woho!

100% disagree. They are new, buggy and require balance and polish. Other than that. They feel to me like the most innovative and brilliant system ever developed in this game. Both technically, progression-wise, regarding to lore, and regarding accesibility, teamplay and scope. Fix the bugs, add more sizes and you'll have my 10.

- Completely broken PVMP / Lack of new gear for freeps.Creeps feel ilke they need skill revamp , too little CD , esp BA.

That's true. Although I have not interest on this.

- Lack of new instances/raids - Not cool.

Epic Battles are instances. Maybe not the kind of instances you were expecting.
Personally, I have grown bored to tear of the old raiding formula. It has become stale for me after so many years and so many MMOs insisting on the same mechanics again and again. Not even if they would have come with 20 new raids it would be better for me, because they would be THE SAME. Trash mobs this, choreography that. Been there, done that.

- Mounted combat is joke and dull ( 1 shooting mobs )

Warbands aren't centainly soloable now. Although there is a glaring lack of consequence of fighting them. Nor their fighting is deep enough to gather anything else than a bunch of casual bystanders to collaborate to defeat them.
The system requires deeper gameplay. Right now, it's just a bunch of unused possibilities.

- HD performance overall ( freezes,crashes,lag,skill delay , worst so far ) horrible FPS drop even on high end machines 16 -30 FPS. Almost non believable.

100% Agree.

- Some items at STORE F example Gift of Valar lvl 50 instant.

It doesn't affect me that someone soloing from 1 to 95 decides to pay a big amount of their money to skip soloing from 1 to 50, in the same sense that it doesn't detract from my enjoyment of the movies if someone skips The Fellowship of the Ring and starts watching them from halfways The Two Towers on.
And I don't see how someone else could possibly feel affected, either. Please, explain yourself. I'm truly interested.

- Seal grind for new gear - Ridiculous 1 piece 188 seals. 1 instance 7 seals.

Isn't that what instance runners like doing, anyway? Everyone runs the least resistance instance anyway, Sambrog. There is no cooldown and it's being farmed. If they do it again and again it's because they like that activity.
So, why limiting their enjoyment to a few times only? Let them run it 25 times if that is what they like most.
Or are they doing it for the fun of the instance itself? Then they shouldn't care about how many seals they get. They will eventually get their seals AS they have fun.
Of course, this doesn't apply to those whose main enjoyment is rush to complete the gear set, then complain that they have nothing to do. But they do have at least half of the fun: they can complain how grindy it has become!

- Missing quests and npcs
-"Tiresome" and boring re-grinding of past now old instances like SG,GB etc..

My client must be buggy. The instance finder isn't automatically launching me into those instances when I log in and forcing me to play them.
In that case, I hope they never fix this bug in my client.


Score:

Innovation:
New battle system, landscape quests with a soul at last!, trait trees (the intention is what matters in this point). 9/10

Music:
Bland, interchangeable, generic, out of place. 2/10

Quantity/Price ratio:
It has disappointed the raiders, the PvPers in the amount of content. Even if I don't personally like those aspects of the game, they are part of the customer base.
For something costing $40 in the most basic edition (more if you pay with TP), I would expect the totally new content, without repetition to last no less than 40 hours.
It isn't the case. If you have no alts, and you repeat the battles until you have half the amount of medals, it doesn't take even 1/4 of that time.
3/10

Polish:
Unequal. Overall quite buggy. The client crashes. Some quests are uncompletable. However the landscape and interiors are top notch and a lot of attention to the detail can be seen everywhere (Éomer has even a toy gnome in his bedroom). It clearly shows that the landscape team has been polishing their work for much longer than the other systems have. I would give landscape a 9, but the other teams are under 5.
4/10

It gives an average of 4.5.
I give 2 extra points for the equisite attention to the detail with the main quest, the voiceovers, the text writing (whoever has written Grima's dialog lines, they have nailed it), and above all, the courage of attempting something as new and technically unbelievable as the Epic Battles.
I detract 1 point for the plain bad treatment to the beta testers during the Beta from some devs and the community team.

Final 5.5, with possibility of improvement if bugs and polish are given their needed attention.

[robbie1435]

With hardly a week under the new name of "The Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep" I have experienced a number of game-changing points for me. From the epic battles to the class changes, from the Epic quests, to some of my closest friends logging off, with only a /tell with "Good bye," there is a lot to undertake. What a lot of people don't understand is that change takes getting used to, and we can't learn everything or do everything in only a week.

So far though, here are my goods, bads, and uglys:

The Good
+Epic Battles are new for me. They fit the explanation of Helm's Deep, as the lore is written in Tolkien's words, they are challenging(That is, if you want good rewards), and they are something different than farming Sambrog and Ost Elendil all day.
+The Epic Quests(this is kind of a subtopic)

• They tie in with the landscape quests, something that hasn't really happened since Rise of Isengard.
• They make you feel as if you are right in the story, as if you were there.
• They are fun, they are different, and most of all they are new.

+Landscape Quests: They are different, and change each time you turn one in... In a matter of minutes, I can go from killing 8 boars to raiding an orc camp.
+New Landscape: Simply beautiful, all I will say.

The Bad
-The Class Changes... This isn't that I do not like them, rather they take some getting used to.
-The Music... Seriously? This is what you use in the Shadow of Chance Thomas? Quite honestly, you should have gone with him again... This soundtrack is awful. Good thing I don't keep my "Music" volume up...

The Ugly
~I have to be completely honest with you here. The only think I find to be ugly about this expansion is the reaction from the community. Day one, everyone was complaining about the class changes, saying they weren't even going to bother with them. One week later? They still refuse to budge. Once you've adjusted, and you read what each of the traits do, that's when you decide what specialization you want to use. It doesn't cost ANYTHING to open a trait line, look at the traits(actually READ what they do), click the button, and decide what you want to do.

I fear that LoTRO's community is the only thing that is coming out bad, with Helm's Deep. MMORPGs are all about change, they are about keeping up with the competition, and whether you accept this fact or not, [B]All MMOs go through change/B], whether shortly after launch, once the game has matured, or once the game has reached it's downfall.

I feel that those who despise the class changes, and refuse to even acknowledge them, could easily relearn their class.

My review?
Landscape= 9/10
Quests=8.5/10
Epics=7/10
Class Changes=7.5/10
Epic Battles=10/10
The Music=0/10
The Community=4/10

Final Score=8/10(Decent, but could have been better if Turbine would have delayed it until late December.)

Call me a fanboy if you want, but this is my opinion, and I plan to defend it.

[Witch0King]

I have nothing against this expansion. I kinda think that the epic was rushed, but updates will come.

[Andthelion]

The Ugly
~I have to be completely honest with you here. The only think I find to be ugly about this expansion is the reaction from the community. Day one, everyone was complaining about the class changes, saying they weren't even going to bother with them. One week later? They still refuse to budge. Once you've adjusted, and you read what each of the traits do, that's when you decide what specialization you want to use. It doesn't cost ANYTHING to open a trait line, look at the traits(actually READ what they do), click the button, and decide what you want to do.

I fear that LoTRO's community is the only thing that is coming out bad, with Helm's Deep. MMORPGs are all about change, they are about keeping up with the competition, and whether you accept this fact or not, [B]All MMOs go through change/B], whether shortly after launch, once the game has matured, or once the game has reached it's downfall.

I feel that those who despise the class changes, and refuse to even acknowledge them, could easily relearn their class.

Why should they budge? why should they have to relearn their class? You need to get over the fact that people dont like the changes now, its getting tired. We get it your a little bit scared lotro is going to have problems because of the negativity surrounding the expansion and the class changes, but instead of waiting for people to budge or get over it, why not accept the fact that a lot of people dont like it, turbine got it wrong and things have to change or the game is going to suffer?

As you said its been a week and still people are unhappy, they still dont like the class changes, they still dont like BBs or the easy mode landscape mobs, maybe just maybe its not the players thats the problem here its what they have been given to play with.

You have no choice anymore but to listen to these people that are not happy, they are leaving and that is only going to hurt your game time in the end, check the steam graphs, sure they are not a definitive representation but there are 40% less people playing lotro on steam than on launch day, its been decreasing everyday since it went live.You can dress it up and argue all you like that is not a success, that is not good news.There is nothing on the internet saying anything good about HD, any gaming forums , any online magazine its all bad press. It has to change or no-one is going to come to the game to replace the people who are leaving.

If you think criticising people on the forums for not budging or telling them the obvious to read their tool tips is going to change anyone's mind you are wrong, there are a lot of people who have tried them, they have tried to like them and the fact is they don't, telling them they are letting the community down is not going to make them suddenly like them and start playing and spending money again.

No-one is saying they dont like change, they are saying they dont like THESE changes, had the trees been implemented better and not been so restrictive, there would not be this out cry, had BBs been made with the people who play tanks, healers and support classes in mind maybe they would find them interesting, had they been released finished instead of a buggy mess people might like them more, had the landscape not been 1 - 2 fest people may have enjoyed levelling more. But that isnt what they got , they got straight jacket style restrictive trees, Boring, DPS orientated big skirms, and faceroll landscape that requires no thought, thats why they are unhappy, thats why they are complaining and leaving and spending less money, and until you accept that and respect their thoughts and accept that things need to change for these people, they will keep complaining and keep leaving and all the people that keep telling them to get over it will suffer in the end.

[KarooOstrich]

With hardly a week under the new name of "The Lord of the Rings Online: Helm's Deep" I have experienced a number of game-changing points for me. From the epic battles to the class changes, from the Epic quests, to some of my closest friends logging off, with only a /tell with "Good bye," there is a lot to undertake. What a lot of people don't understand is that change takes getting used to, and we can't learn everything or do everything in only a week.

So far though, here are my goods, bads, and uglys:

The Good
+Epic Battles are new for me. They fit the explanation of Helm's Deep, as the lore is written in Tolkien's words, they are challenging(That is, if you want good rewards), and they are something different than farming Sambrog and Ost Elendil all day.
+The Epic Quests(this is kind of a subtopic)

• They tie in with the landscape quests, something that hasn't really happened since Rise of Isengard.
• They make you feel as if you are right in the story, as if you were there.
• They are fun, they are different, and most of all they are new.

+Landscape Quests: They are different, and change each time you turn one in... In a matter of minutes, I can go from killing 8 boars to raiding an orc camp.
+New Landscape: Simply beautiful, all I will say.

The Bad
-The Class Changes... This isn't that I do not like them, rather they take some getting used to.
-The Music... Seriously? This is what you use in the Shadow of Chance Thomas? Quite honestly, you should have gone with him again... This soundtrack is awful. Good thing I don't keep my "Music" volume up...

The Ugly
~I have to be completely honest with you here. The only think I find to be ugly about this expansion is the reaction from the community. Day one, everyone was complaining about the class changes, saying they weren't even going to bother with them. One week later? They still refuse to budge. Once you've adjusted, and you read what each of the traits do, that's when you decide what specialization you want to use. It doesn't cost ANYTHING to open a trait line, look at the traits(actually READ what they do), click the button, and decide what you want to do.

I fear that LoTRO's community is the only thing that is coming out bad, with Helm's Deep. MMORPGs are all about change, they are about keeping up with the competition, and whether you accept this fact or not, [B]All MMOs go through change/B], whether shortly after launch, once the game has matured, or once the game has reached it's downfall.

I feel that those who despise the class changes, and refuse to even acknowledge them, could easily relearn their class.

My review?
Landscape= 9/10
Quests=8.5/10
Epics=7/10
Class Changes=7.5/10
Epic Battles=10/10
The Music=0/10
The Community=4/10

Final Score=8/10(Decent, but could have been better if Turbine would have delayed it until late December.)

Call me a fanboy if you want, but this is my opinion, and I plan to defend it.

Before I comment further, did you order this expansion with real money? Or accumulated TP?

[robbie1435]

Why should they budge? why should they have to relearn their class? You need to get over the fact that people dont like the changes now, its getting tired.

Well, if you were at work at your boss said, "Ok, we're changing a few things about your job, you can either leave now, or accept these changes." What would you do? You would start relearning your job to incorporate those new tasks.

All I have heard these past few days is, "I don't like these changes."

Give them until 12.1. I am almost POSITIVE(Which I hardly ever am) sure stuff will change.

And quite frankly: If you don't want to adjust to a change that might improve the game in the long run, no one is forcing you to. You can just as easily log out, uninstall, and never come back. Plain as that. Now, I'm not suggesting you do this, but it is an option open to you.

No-one is saying they dont like change, they are saying they dont like THESE changes,

Right. They are saying they don't like these changes, because they refuse to even try them. One of my closest friends sat down, opened the trait panel, looked at in for about five seconds and said, "Well, time to delete all my characters and cancel my subscription! Bye, Glorg!" FIVE SECONDS. He refused to even look to see what the traits did.

A lot of people don't like the idea of trait trees in LoTRO, but I will tell you, it took me 15 minutes to learn how to play my captain in one spec. About 45 minutes for a three. It doesn't take that long if you are will to sit down for a bit and look at the changes?

[robbie1435]

Before I comment further, did you order this expansion with real money? Or accumulated TP?

Real money. I purchased the premium Pre-purchase edition.

[KarooOstrich]

Real money. I purchased the premium Pre-purchase edition.

In that case, I am glad you are finding the the expansion good value, however don't blame the rest of of the community for not sharing the same view.

Others are not as easily appeased, and have a right to state their displeasure just as much as you have a right to state your satisfaction.

Personally I cannot fathom how this content is deemed acceptable, but that is just my opinion.
As stated above, I am glad some are happy, but others most certainly are not. There is no getting away from this fact.

[Andthelion]

Well, if you were at work at your boss said, "Ok, we're changing a few things about your job, you can either leave now, or accept these changes." What would you do? You would start relearning your job to incorporate those new tasks.

All I have heard these past few days is, "I don't like these changes."

Give them until 12.1. I am almost POSITIVE(Which I hardly ever am) sure stuff will change.

And quite frankly: If you don't want to adjust to a change that might improve the game in the long run, no one is forcing you to. You can just as easily log out, uninstall, and never come back. Plain as that. Now, I'm not suggesting you do this, but it is an option open to you.



Right. They are saying they don't like these changes, because they refuse to even try them. One of my closest friends sat down, opened the trait panel, looked at in for about five seconds and said, "Well, time to delete all my characters and cancel my subscription! Bye, Glorg!" FIVE SECONDS. He refused to even look to see what the traits did.

A lot of people don't like the idea of trait trees in LoTRO, but I will tell you, it took me 15 minutes to learn how to play my captain in one spec. About 45 minutes for a three. It doesn't take that long if you are will to sit down for a bit and look at the changes?

Of course if I was at work I would change, its what puts food on my table and clothes on my kids backs, but this isnt work, its a game man and games fall waaaaaaay down my priority list,last time I checked it us that pay turbine for this game not the other way round, what a ridiculous point to make,and people have a choice, change or leave its not feasible to do that in a job, never mind the fact that if you are comparing a game, a pastime, to a job, then something has gone horribly wrong. Is that really how you see lotro? a chore? a job? something you have to do no matter what?


Are you not reading the forums? people have tried them , there are hundreds of posts telling you exactly why they dont like them, what they find wrong with them, how can they do that if they haven't played them yet? All you want to do is try and label these people as whiners who are whining for whinings sake, you refuse to acknowledge they have genuine issues with the content, just because you played it and like it that doesn't mean everyone should see it the same as you, why is it so hard to grasp that people could play this , try it out, give it a chance and still detest it?

[robbie1435]

In that case, I am glad you are finding the the expansion good value, however don't blame the rest of of the community for not sharing the same view.

I agree. I am only stating my opinion, on how I feel about all aspects after Helm's Deep. I know that what I said might offend some people, and I am ready to receive hate speeches.

Others are not as easily appeased, and have a right to state their displeasure just as much as you have a right to state your satisfaction.

Of course, I am not, and will not, deny anyone their opinion

Personally I cannot fathom how this content is deemed acceptable, but that is just my opinion.

I can understand how you could deem it unacceptable. It all depends on your past experiences with not only LoTRO, but past, present, and even future MMORPGs.

Personally, I played some quite childish MMOs, they were basic(Examples: I played Wizard101 for a few month, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Evony, etc.), so to me, LoTRO is way beyond what my view used to be, and Helm's Deep was even more advanced.

[Tazwulf]

Ive never been on forums before, but HD has forced me to write something.

this is the worst expansion yet: I love lotro for a long time now, and well, its not a love anymore.

on a plus side, I like the look of HD landscape and area's.

but, skill tree's are a joke, miss half the skills we previously had. for example cant trait full blue line on capt, as then you miss last stand/in harms way / shield dunadain. Lm cant anti stun whole group if needed, esp when it comes to pvp. its bad enough trying to keep anti stun on yourself now with 20sec duration and 18sec CD. such a small window.
most/or all wardens are totally annoyed with changed to threat (leech). and thats only mentioning a couple classes.

Big battles are a joke.
Mini's just AOE everything and heal NPC, they are just very very boring.
No new instances, or raids. and please dont say the bigbattle is a raid.
what i class as a raid, is DN,BG,OD,Orthanc. each on lvl a testing raid, with trash mobs, which made the raid. Not go straight to a boss like in erebor. even though its challenge to some extent, but not as good as BG,OD Orthanc. With each of these raids getting harder.

We want raids like this, not silly boring aoe fest big boring battles. speak to a npc mid fight? whats all that about. They are just a glorified skirmish.


This game has hit rock bottom at moment for me, i like old raids, but even if we do them now, as they are scaled content they are too easy. and done them way too much as it is to grind the armour etc on lvl.

You will get many people leaving this game now, as everything is set out for casual people, and nothing for people who like to raid challenges.
Symbols available in skirmish camps straight away? people used to have to grind a bit for one, or wait to buy on AH.
There is nothing for the raiding people to do anymore. Nothing is hard/challenging, and its very disappointing.

I myself never thought id be thinking of joining a different game, but HD is forcing me too. I only hope the dev's will do something and give us better instances like SG/Foundry etc, and better raid content like the old raids. Or you will loose a hell of a lot of people, not that you probably havent already. This was a total waste of my money buying this content.

[robbie1435]

Are you not reading the forums? people have tried them , there are hundreds of posts telling you exactly why they dont like them, what they find wrong with them, how can they do that if they haven't played them yet? All you want to do is try and label these people as whiners who are whining for whinings sake, you refuse to acknowledge they have genuine issues with the content, just because you played it and like it that doesn't mean everyone should see it the same as you, why is it so hard to grasp that people could play this , try it out, give it a chance and still detest it?

1. "All you want to do is try and label these people as whiners who are whining for whinings sake."
A. I refuse to discredit anyone's opinion, I understand that everyone may have their own. No where in any of my posts to I see myself calling them "whiners."

2. "Are you not reading the forums? people have tried them , there are hundreds of posts telling you exactly why they dont like them, what they find wrong with them"
A. So, are you telling me that just because others are finding quirks, I should share that opinion, and hate the expansion? I have run into 1 or 2 bugs since launch, and they were minor. Maybe I'm just lucky?

3. "why is it so hard to grasp that people could play this , try it out, give it a chance and still detest it?"
A. I understand where you are coming from, and I understand that people have the right to detest it, if they at least took the time to learn it. If you don't even want to try and understand it(which some people haven't), you won't get very far, so I can see how you would want to detest it if you don't look to understand.

[Eldarian_Grace]

Big battles - try and get a platinum medal AFK. see how that goes.
Lack of challenge - there hasn't been any challenge on landscape for a while. But actually I'm finding some of the new warbands challenging, where as bugud and kramp were perfectly easy. I find myself one shotting things much more on foot than mounted as a hunter atleast.

Though the lack of new instances does bother me, it's not as old to me as longer term players and teaching them to new kinnies should provide enough interest for me tbh. That and big battles aren't a no no to me unlike yourself and apparently many others.

They are completely different and require different tactics and a different mindset. AFKing doesn't get you anywhere so don't be so flippant.

[enginekid88]

I finally completed the quests on my Captain. I thought it fun and I really love the graphics. When I got to the final defense of Helm's Deep it felt just like I was there in the books fighting alongside Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli.
I think they did a fantastic job translating Tolkien's epic battle into a video game. The only thing that I did not like were the bugs, like the skills changing positions when you respec. But there really weren't that many bugs that I encountered. On the whole everything went very smoothly. I haven't tried playing in a fellowship yet. I'll jump into some groups as soon as I get crafting done.

[Vilda]

The Ugly
~I have to be completely honest with you here. The only think I find to be ugly about this expansion is the reaction from the community. Day one, everyone was complaining about the class changes, saying they weren't even going to bother with them. One week later? They still refuse to budge. Once you've adjusted, and you read what each of the traits do, that's when you decide what specialization you want to use. It doesn't cost ANYTHING to open a trait line, look at the traits(actually READ what they do), click the button, and decide what you want to do.

I fear that LoTRO's community is the only thing that is coming out bad, with Helm's Deep. MMORPGs are all about change, they are about keeping up with the competition, and whether you accept this fact or not, [B]All MMOs go through change/B], whether shortly after launch, once the game has matured, or once the game has reached it's downfall.

What HD brought:
- buged skills,
- buged quests
- buged mobs
- missing pvp equip
- buged tanking with warden (don't know about other classes)
- buged BB
- not finished class changes
- missing items (pots)
- etc.

And you think that reaction of community is ugly?