I am here to PROTEST against the NUTS grinds of the game

[Denebrian_Wintersong]

Pay or grind? And no, I am not defending Turbine.

You choose not to pay but want Turbine to make it easier to do it for free?

Turbine is in business to make money. They lose too much money, we all lose this game. Want that?

Do you have to do this on all alts you have? No

Do you have to have the best gear in game 100% of the time? No

Its along the same lines of raiders vs casuals. Raiders most always have great gear, why? Because they do the work and raid to get the gear. Then casuals start complaining because they want this same gear but do not want to put forth the effort to get it.

Its a lose - lose no matter how you look at it.

The best gear in the game, should never be an easy road. If it was easy, then that diminishes the sense of accomplishment.

[DiogoVP]

Why is anyone grinding? You don't need maxed out LIs for any content (PvE anyway, maybe PvP does, not real familiar with that). You don't even need imbued LIs at all. You don't need essence gear... if you want it, you can craft some up, buy some cheap green/purple essences on the AH (or go to the skirm camp and buy some 95 purples for 500 marks each) and be in perfectly good shape for anything. Virtues aren't that big of a deal, a few essences will give you as much bonus as a full set of 19 virtues.

If you WANT to be maxed out and show everybody how l33t you are, that's a different thing. You have the option to do so. But just because the option to grind to the max exists doesn't mean you have to take it.

Haha.. that's funny because if we weren't supposed to keep extending our legacies then Turbine would have no reason to keep adding more tiers to the LIs. Of course, 10% of our legacies are not worth being extended (Minstrels's healing weapon DPS legacy, for example). But hey, if you're not grinding, why are you discussing on a thread which the focus is to discuss the amount of grind on the game? And we are not maxing out exactly because the grind is insane, that's why many of our alts will be left behind, for Turbine's fault.
I am sorry, but it is really presumptious of you to make the statement that we want to be maxed just for exhibitionism.

[Coeprandua]

If people feel they have to max out every LI then that's their WANT, there is certainly no NEED to grind to max anything out.

This is a lame excuse to justify this horrendous grind and I think it's not even true. Answer to me:

How many times have you platted Faramir's Bane and other boss in 3-man DoMT?
How many times have you completed BFE t2c post-U16?

There are things in this game where even long-standing raiding kins are struggling. So don't tell me there is no need for the gear.

[TharbadThief]

Also show us real comparison to Asian MMOs that have grind which puts this look like no grind. Please show us raw statistics and no BS made up stories that you make now.

Long time ago, I played Conquer Online for a couple of years. At that time the lvl cap there was 133 (or 135, can't remember what it was at the time I finally quit). After a certain point, XP needed for a lvl raise doubled each level. In practice, that meant that in order to get for example lvl 131, you needed double the amount of time what it took you to get from 129 to 130 (which could be weeks of grinding). Or, you could pay hundreds of €uros (yes, I'm not exaggerating here) if you wanted to ease that pain so that it only took few days. For 1 level, 1 character.

Gear grind was so bad that you actually had to spend years if you wanted to go for +10 equipment with free-to-play (+12 being the cap, which required ~4 times the grind compared to +10), or spend thousands of €/$ to get even couple of your items to what was concidered a cap.

Dailies were along the lines of: "kill 300 of this type of monsters, then 500 these and 700 these 3rd kinda mobs".

At the time of my retiring, there was probably 2-3 characters on my server who were at lvl cap, almost all gear pieces near cap (but not quite) and on top of all kinds of ranking lists. But, rumor has it they were 1. filthy rich people who had spent tens of thousands of dollars in the game, 2. were well known exploiters and botters, 3. seemed to be online almost all day, every day.

[Arnenna]

of course, no one forces anyone to do the grind. If you want to max out 10 alts or one, that is your decision, and be prepared to face the consequences. The grind is optional, if you want, do it, if not, go on your merry way

Haha, ok, so maybe I should take my sub, and other money I spend in the store, and go on my merry way then. Would the game miss me? Nope, it absolutely wouldn't.

What if 999 other players joined me? Would the game miss us then?

Yeah, probably.

Why are people grinding? They are grinding, because right now, that is all that is at end game to do. Do we love it? Some apparently do, many do not. When people say there is nothing that we need to grind for, what would they suggest we do instead? Bake bread?

Personally, I would rather cover a reasonable grind on my characters, get them geared up half decent (they don't all have to be maxed out), and then take them to get some of the metadeeds in the instance tab. You know, Turbine put those there for people to play last I looked. My main has covered most of them, so no point in taking her in them - -it's time to take alts through. I would do just that, except the fact that my main is still running around Anorien trying to fight over a few handful of trolls til she reaches 450 so she can get her last class point.

[dannypl]

Pay or grind? And no, I am not defending Turbine.

You choose not to pay but want Turbine to make it easier to do it for free?

Turbine is in business to make money. They lose too much money, we all lose this game. Want that?

Do you have to do this on all alts you have? No

Do you have to have the best gear in game 100% of the time? No

Its along the same lines of raiders vs casuals. Raiders most always have great gear, why? Because they do the work and raid to get the gear. Then casuals start complaining because they want this same gear but do not want to put forth the effort to get it.

Its a lose - lose no matter how you look at it.

The best gear in the game, should never be an easy road. If it was easy, then that diminishes the sense of accomplishment.

LOL what would you know about the grind in LOTRO, you started playing in 2012. If you had been around when the legendary item system was actually added to the game you would know legendaries have always been a grind, and up until recently was a far more acceptable grind. Most of the posters know far better than you that in an MMO things are not handed to you on a silver platter and they have to work for it. However there is a certain balance between grind and reward and in the case of LI's that balance has been obliterated.

Turbine is in business to make money. They lose too much money, we all lose this game. Want that?

Making a buggy, grindy, laggy game with few rewards and recycled content is a way to lose customers and hence lose money as well. You can also lose the game that way. Want that?

[BangoTwinkletoes]

Things have derailed since U16 and U17 just came to make things even worse.

Besides the grind we have for essences and morgul crests, any newbie lvl 100 player will also grind for virtues, class trait points, scrolls of empowerment, star-lit crystals, gold epic battle jewelleries.

To have 79 class trait points, a player will literally need to complete all the deeds of Old Anorien, which means that he'll spend quite some time to get it...

For the gold epic battle jewelleries he'll be spending dozens of hours to get the gold jewelleries.

Now players need an average of 85 ASOEs per LI, which is 190 if you have two LIs, (but we know that there are players that have more than 2 LIs, specially if they are guardians or minstrels).

We all need an average of 10 Crystals per LI, which is at least 20 per toon.

All of that wouldn't be a problem if the prices for 85 ASOEs and Crystals weren't so inflated.

This grind is absolutely unfriendly to the players that like to gear up multiple alts and newbie lvl 100 players.

I absolutely reccomend reading this thread before posting here, if you haven't done it yet:

There is NO pve content in this game that requires any player to undergo that degree of grind to it's fullest extent. All instanced group content can be accessed at lower levels (if necessary at T1) in order to experience it and even on level it is just not necessary to through all of that above. The only exception being pvp but quite honestly who on earth would spend all the above to play a sub-standard pvmp addon to what is a pve game. What you've described above is just a path for to obtaining ePeen and phat l00tz bragging for the l337 kids. Also with U17, a player with master T10 crafting and a fat wallet full of gold can pretty much obtain all they need from the market to kit themselves in armour, jewellery, essences, offhand and LIs. The store provides even more opportunity for shortcuts - store purchased legacy tier scrolls, crystals plus of course the ability to sell a couple of GotV tokens for 8k plus gold or whatever the going rate is but use of the store is not necessary.

Now, the U17 quest design is grindy and a player cannot avoid that without forgoing the content completely and so that is an issue. But gear grind is no different from my teenage daughter complaining that she must have several hundred quid so she can buy the latest over-priced designer labelled whatever when something similar from Primark will do just as well - but I won't be telling her that!!

[spelunker]

The OP is generally correct.

I'll just add that on top of the grind in earning all those SoEs/Crystals, its a massive ####ing grind to even use them all on a LI.

If equipping your winnings is a major time-sink, you probably need to rethink the whole system...

[Denebrian_Wintersong]

LOL what would you know about the grind in LOTRO, you started playing in 2012. If you had been around when the legendary item system was actually added to the game you would know legendaries have always been a grind, and up until recently was a far more acceptable grind. Most of the posters know far better than you that in an MMO things are not handed to you on a silver platter and they have to work for it. However there is a certain balance between grind and reward and in the case of LI's that balance has been obliterated.



Making a buggy, grindy, laggy game with few rewards and recycled content is a way to lose customers and hence lose money as well. You can also lose the game that way. Want that?

Dec 2011 Thank you. Which if you also bothered to look, the OP started Apr 2012. (months after me).

By your logic I don't know what grind is, but they do?

Besides, it should not matter what year someone started THIS game. Do you think we all have only played this and only this?

Personally have been playing MMOs since 1997, and have seen it change a lot in that time. This game is a lot easier on advancement than a large majority of the MMO market.

[Nimnaur]

Turbine is in business to make money. They lose too much money, we all lose this game. Want that?

Yes please so we all can focus another games instead of heart binded J.R.R Tolkien LOTR(o)

Do you have to do this on all alts you have? No

Yes everyone doesn't.While even one character is more than enough how can you dare to ask this...

Do you have to have the best gear in game 100% of the time? No

Yes everyone doesn't.You can roam naked in game it is a way of playing

Lemme add another things:

Do you have to reply here? No

Do you have to level your character? No

Do you have to play this game? No

For the love of sweet pie do we have to whaat? ....

[wispsong]

I somewhat agree that the current grind is a bit too heavy. But on the other side let's not forget that if obtaining the scrolls and crystals were easier (faster) people would complain that there is nothing left to do in the game. So it's always either a) there is too much grind, boring game or b) there is nothing left to do, boring game.

Although I'm against too much grind I'd rather choose a) here then being bored.

But there is nothing left to do in game. This is all repeatable content. I'm getting bored doing that which is the reason that I play alts. Much more fun. I would try harder if it wouldn't look so "impossible" to advance.

[RJFerret]

I am pretty sure Turbine is already aware of this and doesn't say or do nothing, which for me can only be interpreted as disregard for its part.

They are, it was discussed how excessively high the Star-lit barter costs were on the beta forums, and /bug report(s) were sent.

Folks also overestimate how many Stars of Merit is given per battle, most side quests give 15, you get extra for accumulated reward boxes, and the new Battles give more. Everything is designed to appear reachable, without the consumer being as aware, in this case Turbine just slipped and made attaining these items impractical.

A useful change would be for the items to not be bound as well, that way folks with limited time could use in game gold to obtain them from folks who enjoy grinding mindlessly.

[Esterian]

Whats the difference of:

a) Turbine is adding LI tiers and you don't put in any scrolls/crystals

or

b) Turbine isn't adding any new LI tiers and you can't put those in

[Arnenna]

Dec 2011 Thank you. Which if you also bothered to look, the OP started Apr 2012. (months after me).

By your logic I don't know what grind is, but they do?

Besides, it should not matter what year someone started THIS game. Do you think we all have only played this and only this?

Personally have been playing MMOs since 1997, and have seen it change a lot in that time. This game is a lot easier on advancement than a large majority of the MMO market.

Bottom line here is this . . . .

We often get a few people complaining about advancement within the game, always have done since I started playing, and I hear, that happened before I started playing also.

I've seen people ask for things to be nerfed, and sometimes Turbine go with it, and sometimes they don't. I've seen grinds being reduced (recently), when compared to the LI grind, had far less people up in arms.

When there are a lot of players raising a concern (and on this LI grind - there are loads, in game as well as out here on the forum), maybe Turbine should listen a little.

[Scirocco]

They are, it was discussed how excessively high the Star-lit barter costs were on the beta forums, and /bug report(s) were sent.

Folks also overestimate how many Stars of Merit is given per battle, most side quests give 15, you get extra for accumulated reward boxes, and the new Battles give more. Everything is designed to appear reachable, without the consumer being as aware, in this case Turbine just slipped and made attaining these items impractical.

A useful change would be for the items to not be bound as well, that way folks with limited time could use in game gold to obtain them from folks who enjoy grinding mindlessly.

Ironically, the initial cost for ASEs and ASCs in terms of SOMs were less than half of what they are now. But some folks complained that this made acquiring them too easy, so the prices got jacked up for Live.

As this thread shows, at least a substantial part of the "grind" affliction is self-inflicted.

First, MMORPGs and grind go together. From day 1, you grind levels, grind for improved gear, grind for stats, grind for virtues, grind reputation, and so on. If you continue to play an MMORPG for years, you have to got to be getting some enjoyment from the grind. So-called end game content, of whatever sort you prefer, is equally grindy. For newer games, or at least the first time through, it may not appear to be so, but that's because we enjoy what we're doing. If you enjoy it, it's not a grind (or, at least, less of one).

Second, LOTRO's grind is perfectly fine for those advancing a single character (and probably is even less of a grind than many other MMORPGs). The OP brought up the grind associated with the new MT content, but on an individual basis, it's rather brief: I completed all deeds and quests and got my 4 trait points by the 4th day after release, with only a reasonable amount of time playing each day. Admittedly, I am a focused, efficient powergamer type, but even so, it would reasonable for most gamers to reach that same point after a week or two.

Third, I agree that if you multiply that single character grind (which is acceptable) by 10 or more, the grind can become crushing. But if you are going to try max 10 characters, it is not unreasonable to expect you to spend 10x the amount of time as I did for one character.

Or, more practically, if you really feel compelled to max 10 characters, and don't want to spend 10x the amount of time doing so, it is reasonable to expect you to pay, and pay well, for the privilege of shortening the time spent on that cumulative, self-inflicted grind.

[Laerien]

Have to say it - yes, the grind is too much. It has gone from hefty, to heavy, to totally unrealistic within a year. It's store driven now, that or impossible grind.

It's hard for one alt, let alone ten.

I haven't done any calculation yet but all this grind madness seems not reasonable even for the store.

How much a maxed LI cost in real cash/TP?

[dannypl]

Dec 2011 Thank you. Which if you also bothered to look, the OP started Apr 2012. (months after me).

By your logic I don't know what grind is, but they do?

Besides, it should not matter what year someone started THIS game. Do you think we all have only played this and only this?

Personally have been playing MMOs since 1997, and have seen it change a lot in that time. This game is a lot easier on advancement than a large majority of the MMO market.

You certainly don't know what a grind is if you keep thinking that LOTRO is light compared to...What exactly? You clearly didn't get the point of my first post. Comparing LOTRO to an asian MMO is like comparing apples to oranges. Hello Kitty has a lot less violence than HALO... Not at all the same genre.

Spelunker sums up the situation far better than I can:

If equipping your winnings is a major time-sink, you probably need to rethink the whole system...

[DiogoVP]

Pay or grind? And no, I am not defending Turbine.

You choose not to pay but want Turbine to make it easier to do it for free?

Turbine is in business to make money. They lose too much money, we all lose this game. Want that?

Do you have to do this on all alts you have? No

Do you have to have the best gear in game 100% of the time? No

Its along the same lines of raiders vs casuals. Raiders most always have great gear, why? Because they do the work and raid to get the gear. Then casuals start complaining because they want this same gear but do not want to put forth the effort to get it.

Its a lose - lose no matter how you look at it.

The best gear in the game, should never be an easy road. If it was easy, then that diminishes the sense of accomplishment.

"Accomplishment" should be earned by merit, by doing something challenging. Not by expending 500 hours of your time doing some easy run repeatedly. Are you joking?

And do I have to have the best gear in the game? No.
Do I have to level up all my toons to level 100? No.
Do I have to play in the moors? No.
Do I have to buy X quest pack? No.
Do I have to do anything in this game at all? No.
Do I have to play LOTRO? NO.

What a poor excuse to justify this enormous grind. Don't you think?
But I know where it's coming from. It's coming from selfish players that don't care about the grind because they are either not going to max out their stuff or only have 1 or 2 characters and LOTS of available time to play LOTRO.
Some people have something called real life and honestly, my daily real life job requires much less work than LOTRO does, which is something unnacceptable.

[Hurin]

It would be nice if those with the "you're just lazy" or "you just want it all and want it now" attitudes would actually think outside their myopic little boxes.

There are a lot of players who are fully willing to do immense amounts of grind to achieve everything in the game. . . if they feel those grinds are in the game for the right reasons. That's the way we played the game in the subscription era. And back then, I was right there (though few of those currently in the peanut gallery now were there with me) telling people to either suck it up and do what's required, or do without the reward.

The problem is that when a game starts selling "grind avoidance" to its players, nobody can ever be sure if a grind is in the game --or is as egregious as it is-- because good game design called for it, or because they realize that a lot of people who don't value earning what they get will just hand over cash instead. Thus, the grinds are artificially greater than they "should" be and are ever-increasing relative to where they otherwise would be in a game that didn't have such perverse incentives and conflicts of interest.

Put another way: People don't object to the grinds per se. They object to the perception that the grinds are worse than they otherwise would be because Turbine makes money directly off of making the game more grindy than it otherwise would be.

There are people here who have done every grind in the game. They have demonstrated their willingness to do the work necessary to earn their rewards. But even they are now looking at how the game systems are progressing and pointing out that this is egregious and falling far outside what was considered reasonable when sound game design and compelling gameplay was the prime consideration in adjusting the level of grind.

It's not surprising that those who willfully hand over their money to avoid parts of the game and have rewards handed to them ex nihilo (how is that different than cheating again? Except where you pay money for it?), thus incentivizing the creation of even more content that they dislike and will pay to avoid, aren't able to think beyond their own short-sighted experience, playstyle, and goals. But it's a shame that they have to so obtusely and ignorantly poop all over valid points founded in far more depth than they are willing to consider.

--H

P.S. And I didn't even take a moment to lambast the ridiculous "false choice" already making its appearance: "They have to do this or we'll never make it to Mordor! They're business! They have to do this or the game ends!" That ridiculous logic has been used to justify every game-integrity-undermining decision since store-exclusive relics. When will you folks give it a rest?

[DiogoVP]

I haven't done any calculation yet but all this grind madness seems not reasonable even for the store.

How much a maxed LI cost in real cash/TP?

Someone said it's nearly 200 dolars

[Laerien]

Someone said it's nearly 200 dolars

Thanks for the info. That's too much.

I don't think the average player could spend the 20% of that; not even mentioning the people who have several characters

[Scirocco]

Someone said it's nearly 200 dolars

No idea about cash, but if you're doing a pair of ILIs for a single established character that has been played regularly, you can "max out" both ILIs without spending a dime (or a TP) in about 2 to 3 weeks. Faster, of course, if you've built up a bank of SoMs or other in-game currencies.

If you haven't built up that bank, but feel the need for immediate or rapid advancement, then you have to resort to the Store. It may be 200 dollars, which the average player wouldn't be able to pay, but then, the average player wouldn't need to.

[Xhiu]

I somewhat agree that the current grind is a bit too heavy. But on the other side let's not forget that if obtaining the scrolls and crystals were easier (faster) people would complain that there is nothing left to do in the game. So it's always either a) there is too much grind, boring game or b) there is nothing left to do, boring game.

Although I'm against too much grind I'd rather choose a) here then being bored.

And yet you can do both. [I frequently fall asleep in the middle of training instances, no matter how tired I am to begin with.]

I'm ok with how the grind is going. I'm not cheering and throwing rose petals, not at all. But... the thing is, I am doing a little a day. I have only 4 100's. I'm not deleting any of them as they are crafters. I've messed around with doing the daily grind but I find it much less stressful than Hytbold and much less random than Wildermore. My main, a hunter is still stuck on getting the last WBII quest in Wildermore and I stopped doing Hytbold on any toon after she became Thane.

My kin has instance night on Fridays and I am ok with getting M/M?S there. More empowerment scrolls, yay. <<<from the M/M. I do the daily training instance (there is only one, the armory...) for gold/silver tokens. Another empowerment scroll. And after I use these sometime in the next week they will get leveled up doing the EB/skirm/TI/FriNiteFights. I use the other 3 toons to get stuff for the hunter. I still don't have a filled in slotted armor set. I can see minor progress as I go. And if I don't play for 3 days, I'm not behind anyone but myself. This is the casual game. I have never raced to get to level cap, although when RoI came out I was ready to go questing and did the new content as fast as I could cuz I wanted to do it, not get it done.

The current content I do not want to get it done, with or without the rewards. And so far, I'm not very far in, I don't want to do it. In the last three weeks, [talk about grind] I have been on my gathering alt, aka Explorer, gathering mats for a couple lowbie alt crafters so they can get guild rep, or farming up my yeoman (3) to tier 10 max.

Suggestion: I would be more inclined to grab the last few trait points if I could put them anywhere, the way you can with BB points, for 2 trait points each. In fact make them 3 trait points each, after you get to the bottom of your original tree. Talk about unique builds...

[DiogoVP]

And yet you can do both. [I frequently fall asleep in the middle of training instances, no matter how tired I am to begin with.]

I'm ok with how the grind is going. I'm not cheering and throwing rose petals, not at all. But... the thing is, I am doing a little a day. I have only 4 100's. I'm not deleting any of them as they are crafters. I've messed around with doing the daily grind but I find it much less stressful than Hytbold and much less random than Wildermore. My main, a hunter is still stuck on getting the last WBII quest in Wildermore and I stopped doing Hytbold on any toon after she became Thane.

My kin has instance night on Fridays and I am ok with getting M/M?S there. More empowerment scrolls, yay. <<<from the M/M. I do the daily training instance (there is only one, the armory...) for gold/silver tokens. Another empowerment scroll. And after I use these sometime in the next week they will get leveled up doing the EB/skirm/TI/FriNiteFights. I use the other 3 toons to get stuff for the hunter. I still don't have a filled in slotted armor set. I can see minor progress as I go. And if I don't play for 3 days, I'm not behind anyone but myself. This is the casual game. I have never raced to get to level cap, although when RoI came out I was ready to go questing and did the new content as fast as I could cuz I wanted to do it, not get it done.

The current content I do not want to get it done, with or without the rewards. And so far, I'm not very far in, I don't want to do it. In the last three weeks, [talk about grind] I have been on my gathering alt, aka Explorer, gathering mats for a couple lowbie alt crafters so they can get guild rep, or farming up my yeoman (3) to tier 10 max.

Suggestion: I would be more inclined to grab the last few trait points if I could put them anywhere, the way you can with BB points, for 2 trait points each. In fact make them 3 trait points each, after you get to the bottom of your original tree. Talk about unique builds...

Casual players that are only doing the grind of the dailies are going to feel the weight of the current grind way less than the players that doing other kinds of grinds. I personally am finding myself getting more casual everyday because of things like this that make me lose the interest and enchantment I had for the game. I am not tolerating this kind of cruelty upon the players.
And people who defend Turbine in this case are being selfish and cruel as well.

[Hurin]

And people who defend Turbine in this case are being selfish and cruel as well.

I'm about as vocal a supporter as you're going to find (see my post history). But you're going to lose even someone like me with this sort of rhetoric. Let's not go full emo.