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

[BangoTwinkletoes]

PVP requires very good skill first, then good gear since you are to compete with other good players. Some of the bbs, expecially the dps race ones, are far easier when people have good gear and stats. BBs have their own grind too, by the way, higher ranks make them both easier and less boring. T2C content requires good gear period, no matter how good you are, if you haven't got enough morale or mits you die, and make your group fail too.

If you are not a completionist in even the smalles way, If you are a role player hanging in eriador all the time, If you only enjoy landscape quests, if you don't play group content, if you don't pvp, then you don't need to grind for anything at all. Every landscape solo quest can be completed with quest gear, 3rd age li's and zero virtues at all.

But hey, how many ifs had I to put in that sentence

Define "Good gear"?

I suspect what you're suggesting is that to do t2c content, one's character must have maxed levelled LI, full BB gold jewellery, armour with full gold essences etc etc. In that case you're just pedalling the same old bull that the phat l00tz l337 kids have done in all MMOs - which is to exaggerate the entry level of gear required in order to create that sense of elitism for those who already have it all.

Or to put it another way, without any Turbine-defined gear benchmarks for each instance that (nearly all other MMOs have) that tells the player the minimum level of gear required in order to stand sufficient chance at completing the content (skill notwithstanding) then people will just make up their own benchmarks in order to meet their own purposes, and what we have in lotro are those who peddle the notion that characters must be fully geared in order to do t2c content when all the evidence is there to the contrary.

Now, of course with pvmp it's different as freeps will try to eek out whatever edge they can, but for pve it's just rubbish.

[TharbadThief]

For some, maxing their characters is the game. It's the point. You might as well ask a bodybuilder why they feel the need to be so big/strong since nothing in their everyday life requires them to be that big or strong.

Good thing this game doesn't have 20 classes As we have read here, maxing 1 character is easy. 2-3 is still very much doable but requires some effort. The more effort the faster those characters "need" to be maxed. But 10, that's disgusting. And in my opinion, that's what it should be. At that point it's not about bodybuilding anymore, but obsessing over every muscle fibre in one's body, and every gram of protein, carbohydrate and fat one eats, while complaining about how much it hurts.

[littlesquinky]

Define "Good gear"?

I suspect what you're suggesting is that to do t2c content, one's character must have maxed levelled LI, full BB gold jewellery, armour with full gold essences etc etc. In that case you're just pedalling the same old bull that the phat l00tz l337 kids have done in all MMOs - which is to exaggerate the entry level of gear required in order to create that sense of elitism for those who already have it all.

I've never aimed to the the best equipment in this game, nor I have ever played in a 1337 raiding kin. I was kicked out of one kin when It turned from a casual to a raiding kin because of refusing that mindset. So your rude remark about what I wrote is just that, an assumption that missed the target and accomplished nothing, a part proving your rudeness.

Back to the topic, I've been doing some T2C content, I have DA essence gear armour with most blue/gold and some purple, not maxed lis but decent runes, blue BB jewellery and a couple of gold pieces. Virtues about 14 on all of them. We were able to complete the instances with some wipes, but all the people in my group were substantally more skilled and better equipped then me. I would describe my setup as decent, not good or optimal, and the amount of grind I had to put in it to get it is too much for me to afford in the future, even if I liked to grind.

[Hurin]

Good thing this game doesn't have 20 classes As we have read here, maxing 1 character is easy. 2-3 is still very much doable but requires some effort. The more effort the faster those characters "need" to be maxed. But 10, that's disgusting. And in my opinion, that's what it should be. At that point it's not about bodybuilding anymore, but obsessing over every muscle fibre in one's body, and every gram of protein, carbohydrate and fat one eats, while complaining about how much it hurts.

. . . and yet keeping a stable of alts maxed out and polished would arguably be reasonable/do-able or at least less "impossible" were the grinds in the game not tuned to increasing revenue and instead tuned toward sound/fun/compelling gameplay.

What you've engaged in there is a rationalization. Not an argument for why I'm incorrect. To say "well, at least it's not x" isn't to say that y isn't the case. Nor that y isn't lamentable and/or undesirable.

On a less theoretical note: Even for single characters now, it's getting to the point where many are feeling like suckers for continuing to indulge this business model. We're doing far more, and enduring ever-more tedious gameplay because others are willing to shell out cash to avoid the tedium. When you won't buy your way to advancement (because that renders that advancement pointless according to your playstyle) and yet the tedium required to advance is being artificially increased in order to bilk those who do not play the game in the same way, then the centre cannot hold. The game is leaving you behind.

[DiogoVP]

Good thing this game doesn't have 20 classes As we have read here, maxing 1 character is easy. 2-3 is still very much doable but requires some effort. The more effort the faster those characters "need" to be maxed. But 10, that's disgusting. And in my opinion, that's what it should be. At that point it's not about bodybuilding anymore, but obsessing over every muscle fibre in one's body, and every gram of protein, carbohydrate and fat one eats, while complaining about how much it hurts.

That's not true. That's something that many players do on lotro and you are probably prejudiced. And maxing 1 character is not easy... unless you play a lot, then it is easy. Otherwise maxing one toon would take 3-4 months.
When I started leveling up my toons, my focus was to get to know them and how they were at level cap and discover the roles that I enjoyed more, but in the process I found out that I like all of them and I would have tons of fun doing content with all of them. It's even good for me to have that possibility to compare the toons so I can give more efficient feedback about the classes. And that's it: 10 characters = 10 classes. I don't regret my choice to play all of them and you know what? That's far from being considered an obsession. If I was obsessed I would probably never leave the game, but in fact I am very proactive at college and you could say that college is my obsession, not LOTRO. This is something that you cannot understand because players have different playstyles. And it's part of my playstyle to play multiple toons. I hate to leave some of my toons behind.
The fact is that we used to change our LIs once in a year, so you had 1 year to max your LI and then enjoy the game with maxed gear. But now it's like I am putting some effort on my LI and 3 months later then add more and more... the fact is that there will be tons of toons many updates " behind schedule".
And you cannot deny that it's going to drive many players away and Turbine will be a fool if it doesn't listen carefully.

[Arnenna]

. . . and yet keeping a stable of alts maxed out and polished would arguably be reasonable/do-able or at least less "impossible" were the grinds in the game not tuned to increasing revenue and instead tuned toward sound/fun/compelling gameplay.

What you've engaged in there is a rationalization. Not an argument for why I'm incorrect. To say "well, at least it's not x" isn't to say that y isn't the case. Nor that y isn't lamentable and/or undesirable.

On a less theoretical note: Even for single characters now, it's getting to the point where many are feeling like suckers for continuing to indulge this business model. We're doing far more, and enduring ever-more tedious gameplay because others are willing to shell out cash to avoid the tedium. When you won't buy your way to advancement (because that renders that advancement pointless according to your playstyle) and yet the tedium required to advance is being artificially increased in order to bilk those who do not play the game in the same way, then the centre cannot hold. The game is leaving you behind.

I'm one in the will not pay camp. If it came to the point where I feel I must buy my ASoE's, I would only consider it at the cost of my sub. With the LI grind the way it is at the moment, I'd be much better off dropping my sub, and using that money toward the ASoE grind instead. It would either triple the number of scrolls I could purchase per month (if I pay the same) or save me two thirds the cost (for just the single monthly scroll a sub could buy me).

The numbers say it all. When it comes to buying your way through a LI grind, the cost of the sub, compared with the TP you can purchase with the same money - is much higher.

Makes you wonder if Turbine even did the math on that.

[EB64]

If they removed this "grind" you guys are crying about, you'd be crying that the game is too "casual".
There is NO way Turbine can win in this fight.
Either the game will be too "grindy"(BTW, that's pretty much the definition of MMOs) or the game will be too "casual".
The people who live for only end-game will always rush through content as fast as they can to get the new stuff then continue to grind away to perfect their equipment, and the people who take their time will continue to play at their own pace and just won't "keep up" with the end-game elite.

Either way Turbine does(or doesn't) do something to "fix" this issue, someone's going to be unhappy about it.

[Arnenna]

That's not true. That's something that many players do on lotro and you are probably prejudiced. And maxing 1 character is not easy... unless you play a lot, then it is easy. Otherwise maxing one toon would take 3-4 months.
When I started leveling up my toons, my focus was to get to know them and how they were at level cap and discover the roles that I enjoyed more, but in the process I found out that I like all of them and I would have tons of fun doing content with all of them. It's even good for me to have that possibility to compare the toons so I can give more efficient feedback about the classes. And that's it: 10 characters = 10 classes. I don't regret my choice to play all of them and you know what? That's far from being considered an obsession. If I was obsessed I would probably never leave the game, but in fact I am very proactive at college and you could say that college is my obsession, not LOTRO. This is something that you cannot understand because players have different playstyles. And it's part of my playstyle to play multiple toons. I hate to leave some of my toons behind.
The fact is that we used to change our LIs once in a year, so you had 1 year to max your LI and then enjoy the game with maxed gear. But now it's like I am putting some effort on my LI and 3 months later then add more and more... the fact is that there will be tons of toons many updates " behind schedule".
And you cannot deny that it's going to drive many players away and Turbine will be a fool if it doesn't listen carefully.

I agree with you on this. I actually have 22 alts on my main account, but many of those are just duplicate classes that I use for crafting and whatnot. Most of them have never left Bree, and aren't likely to anytime soon. I have at least one of every class that I play. So far, of all my level capped characters I have discovered that I really dislike LM, and so, that's one alt that needn't do this grind at all. I'm not over-struck on cappy either, but n fairness, I haven't played her enough to completely rule her out to the shelf yet. My hunter and minstrel are my two mains - they both do everything. My Warden, RK and Burg, while not my mains, are often needed in runs, so that the members that usually take those roles in group runs, can actually take something different for a change and get deeds done on other characters other than their tank, healer or stealthy sneak. I don't see that as an obsession, I see it as teamwork.

[Daguest]

There is a point I have to disagree. It's not a game with a lot of grind. It's a grind with a bit of game.

LOTRO always was super grindy. Even in the beginning (*cough*virtues*cough*). It's part of the reason I became a casual, you just grind for something, and when you're done, expansion, restart. Once in a while I go crazy and do one of their grind, like I did Hytbold. Or whitemore (spelling ? The Forochel in Rohan). I even did a DA daily, had a bug and stopped right there. It was enough to slap me in the face, and I came back to my senses. It was not worth it.

I'll wait for the next level cap to see if it's worth grinding so I can enjoy group content later on.

Meanwhile, I'm playing casually. Beside my lvl 100, I still have 1char to up from western rohan, and 1 from the lvl 60-70. So I'm fine, that's lots to do when you play once a week or so. Also, since U17 is a FPS killer and makes me crash, I'm not going to MT until it's fixed.
And I'm not going to do the MT metadeed. Period. No amount of reward would make me do that. My life is not that great, but I still value it a bit more than that.


When they see very few people is doing it, they'll find another way. Best way to prove them wrong.

[Arnenna]

If they removed this "grind" you guys are crying about, you'd be crying that the game is too "casual".
There is NO way Turbine can win in this fight.
Either the game will be too "grindy"(BTW, that's pretty much the definition of MMOs) or the game will be too "casual".
The people who live for only end-game will always rush through content as fast as they can to get the new stuff then continue to grind away to perfect their equipment, and the people who take their time will continue to play at their own pace and just won't "keep up" with the end-game elite.

Either way Turbine does(or doesn't) do something to "fix" this issue, someone's going to be unhappy about it.

It's already casual (although, casual is not a term I like at all). There is absolutely zero difficulty behind this grind, it can all be done solo in quest gear. It's not that which people are opposing, its length of repetitive content per alt, and the herding toward certain content. BB's are not difficult, nor are solo dailies, yet these are the places that Turbine favour for putting the least grind for LI's. I'd rather spend an hour in OD, doing some real work, with a scroll in the chest at the end, than 20 minutes running around a BB doing nothing for enough marks to buy one. To me, the second option is what one should consider "casual".

[spelunker]

. . . and yet keeping a stable of alts maxed out and polished would arguably be reasonable/do-able or at least less "impossible" were the grinds in the game not tuned to increasing revenue and instead tuned toward sound/fun/compelling gameplay.

Perhaps another way to put this is to compare the current 'grind' with past expansions.

In the past, LIs required (roughly):
1 Scroll of Delving
21 Scroll's of empowerment to max all legacies (assuming everything was at t3-t4 after leveling, which is reasonable)
3 Star-lits (once these were added to the game).

I don't think the time it takes to earn a SoE is drastically different from what it was in the past, perhaps slightly quicker though.

So the LI grind has roughly quadrupled compared to the past.

I was thinking of going through and comparing the time it takes to get all the other gear aside from LIs (armour, jewelry, etc), but don't have the heart to revisit better times so directly. Suffice to say this part of 'gearing' was about the same as now (though far more varied in what you did) in RoR and HD, and prior to that (RoI and earlier) it took longer in Real World time, but far less from an in-game time due to raid locks.

The Trait point grind is an ever increasing one. It probably takes the same amount of time to grind through all the Old Anorien deeds as it did the 5 HD quest chains, with grinding though all the 'required' portions of East, Central, and West Gondor for those points being a bit shorter than either. The problem here of course is you have to do all of them, where gear grinds are only required once.

[Arnenna]

There is a point I have to disagree. It's not a game with a lot of grind. It's a grind with a bit of game.

LOTRO always was super grindy. Even in the beginning (*cough*virtues*cough*). It's part of the reason I became a casual, you just grind for something, and when you're done, expansion, restart. Once in a while I go crazy and do one of their grind, like I did Hytbold. Or whitemore (spelling ? The Forochel in Rohan). I even did a DA daily, had a bug and stopped right there. It was enough to slap me in the face, and I came back to my senses. It was not worth it.

I'll wait for the next level cap to see if it's worth grinding so I can enjoy group content later on.

Meanwhile, I'm playing casually. Beside my lvl 100, I still have 1char to up from western rohan, and 1 from the lvl 60-70. So I'm fine, that's lots to do when you play once a week or so. Also, since U17 is a FPS killer and makes me crash, I'm not going to MT until it's fixed.
And I'm not going to do the MT metadeed. Period. No amount of reward would make me do that. My life is not that great, but I still value it a bit more than that.


When they see very few people is doing it, they'll find another way. Best way to prove them wrong.

Virtues are no comparison to the LI grind for imbued weapons. A character has 100 levels of content to find 5 x 19 virtues, and 100 levels to do it in. They have a small window of only level cap content at minimum level 100 to find mega amounts of LI stat increase.

I'm beginning to come around to your way of thinking if I'm honest. Drop the grind, play with some low level alts and have some fun in the game again.

[Hurin]

So the LI grind has roughly quadrupled compared to the past.

It's probably no accident that the Imbuement system with its exponentially, constantly increasing grind was introduced at just about the same time that they were deciding that level cap increases weren't in our foreseeable future.

"Hey everyone! Thanks to this exponentially grindier system, you won't have to dismantle your LIs the next time your character levels up! Oh, and also, your characters won't be leveling up anymore."

[Hurin]

Or do what others are doing and go play another MMO >.>

But don't forget to log in and get your Hobbit Presents!

[spelunker]

It's probably no accident that the Imbuement system with its exponentially, constantly increasing grind was introduced at just about the same time that they were deciding that level cap increases weren't in our foreseeable future.

"Hey everyone! Thanks to this exponentially grindier system, you won't have to dismantle your LIs the next time your character levels up! Oh, and also, your characters won't be leveling up anymore."

Don't be silly, that was just a happy accident.

[Arnenna]

Or do what others are doing and go play another MMO >.>

But, I'm not interested in other MMO's, so in my case, that wouldn't be a solution.

If everyone left to play another MMO, there wouldn't be any LOTRO left.

[Afuna]

I could not agree more, and I made my own post in a separate forum complaining of the same thing.
I am actually buying LESS now from the store, and grinding LESS b/c turbine has set the bar so high, no one can achieve it, unless they only have one toon.
So...you lose Turbine, b/c you won't find me buying even ONE ASOE from your store, and prior to this absurd update, I actually WOULD buy scrolls to keep my toon's weapons and OH maxed out.
No more.
Foolish marketing decision.

[Norahcdir]

It was your choice to make 10 characters and it's your choice to want to min-max them all. Can't expect any game to balance grind around that. Pick 2 or 3 and focus on those, or deal with not maxing them all. Players with 2 or 3 chars don't want to sit around with nothing to grind for while you finish characters 4-10.

[Hurin]

It was your choice to make 10 characters and it's your choice to want to min-max them all. Can't expect any game to balance grind around that. Pick 2 or 3 and focus on those, or deal with not maxing them all. Players with 2 or 3 chars don't want to sit around with nothing to grind for while you finish characters 4-10.

Missing the point.

They used to balance the game around something other than what they are currently balancing it around.

Imagine this. . .

The developers are in a room deciding how many Scrolls of Empowerment the next expansion should require for us to re-max our LIs. . .

• "Pro-Casual Dev" says: "I think the grind would stop being fun at all around 10 or 15. So lets make it 12?
• "Pro-Hardcore Player Dev" says: "Pffft. That's too easy. Make it at least 25!"
• "Beancounter Dev" says: "The research and number crunching shows that the casuals will grind about 10, maybe fifteen, and then will be willing to buy another fifteen. So, we'll make it 35. At 40, too many people would despair and quit outright."

Now, who loses in all that? The players (call them "hardcore" if you must) who want to earn what they achieve. They're willing to do everything and more than a casual would do. But because the casual will pay cash to get to the same place, the in-game effort required is always facing upwards pressure. The "beancounter dev" puts the mark above what either of the two playstyles would otherwise find tolerable. But, at least those who (to my mind, bizarrely) are willing to buy their achievements in the game, aren't totally frozen out of the game and their preferred playstyle by the eventual decision. Those who earn their rewards are eventually driven to despair. Or, as shown immediately above, told to just play the game differently (as though they wouldn't already be playing it that way if they found that enjoyable).

[spelunker]

It was your choice to make 10 characters and it's your choice to want to min-max them all. Can't expect any game to balance grind around that. Pick 2 or 3 and focus on those, or deal with not maxing them all. Players with 2 or 3 chars don't want to sit around with nothing to grind for while you finish characters 4-10.

Even if you subscribe to the theory that 'you don't have to do it', the other issue is that prior to the most recent rounds of of updates, people were able to keep 10 characters relatively maxed out on the same time investement that they are no longer able to now.

[Palenen]

The game was designed to explore everywhere and to do everything. Certainly not what it has become. The only part of it that really felt anywhere near a grind were the slayer deeds including ones embedded into the dungeons. Even they didn't feel like a grind because the rewards built into those dungeons people wanted too. So it was more like in addition too.

Based upon the lore from the books and fellowships. I really wish people who have joined the game f2p and on from 2010 could have experienced it. It's really unfortunate to have threads like these to pop up.

I tend to agree somewhat about the amount of coins or bartered items to attain gear. I was just starting DA when they released Minas Tirith. DA is obsolete now. And I am a person who likes to do it all.

---

"I amar prestar aen. Han mathon ne nen. Han mathon ne chae. A han noston ned gwilith."
Palenen of Elendimir - "May you 'Jingle Jangle' into the West."
Alliance of the North - The Team - Conviction

[Spilo]

Even if you subscribe to the theory that 'you don't have to do it', the other issue is that prior to the most recent rounds of of updates, people were able to keep 10 characters relatively maxed out on the same time investement that they are no longer able to now.

Amen, also, I don't have to play this game either. But I'd like to. And the way this game is setup makes me not want to play it. It makes me want to cancel my VIP and try another game. If it took approximately 1 year solid of in-game time to make it to level 100, I don't think anyone would play this game, yet no one would be "forced" to play the game- it would just suck. We're seeing something similar to a lesser extent with the current LI joke.

[DiogoVP]

It was your choice to make 10 characters and it's your choice to want to min-max them all. Can't expect any game to balance grind around that. Pick 2 or 3 and focus on those, or deal with not maxing them all. Players with 2 or 3 chars don't want to sit around with nothing to grind for while you finish characters 4-10.

Here I thought people maxed their LIs to run stuff more effectively, not just for the sake of grinding. If you want to max your LI and then in the day when it finally reaches max they add another 50 tiers, that is an endless grind with no real reward since you won't be experiencing your maxxed LI for long.
Basically you want to have something to do while others are heavily prejudiced. You have a lot of stuff to do: the grind in this game doesn't resume to LI, there is always something to do and if you're part of a kinship you usually do things just for fun, not to get gear. Basically you want the grind to be heavier so you can spend more time doing Glighant, Thorog, Sammy, Ost Elendil and other non challenging instances repeatedly a thousand times. Woow... that sounds so exciting!!!
I thought this game was supposed to be fun and not a second job (it actually seems like a main job if you ask me).
If you want something to do go find something fun and challenging. Doing these mediocre instances a thousand times is just a tiring and very slow job that kills the game for people. When this game becomes so empty, I wanna see you boast.

[CornWollis]

It would be nice for sure if they stopped wasting time on adding an unnecessary grind and adding some more challenging content to the game for us to test the new gear on, they were going in the right direction with Osgiliath 3/6 man's they were difficult when they came out but now they are just being facerolled because of the new gear we are acquiring.

It would be nice if they took the time to make a new tier to old classic content like ITA/Fornost instances to make the mobs like the ones in Osgiliath just for some extra challenge and maybe add supreme essences to the loot tables and stars of merit as a quest reward for completing like marks and medallions, it's just a shame that not everyone is interested in doing any of the old content because of BB's giving a much higher reward rate the old content is going to waste.

[Grahlwur]

In summary, Turbine's idea of massive grind to keep people logged in has backfired in my case, I actually log in a lot less.

I've been playing less and less over the last years, and the grind is the main reason.

Reading through this thread I almost feel I'm going off topic when not solely talking about LI, but this is regarding the grind in general.
I am a completionist and have always been aiming for getting all quests, deeds, mounts, recipes, titles, decorations, whatever. Not usually focusing too much on gear, as gear will be replaced but the other things will never go away.

Not saying all of these things are bad or too much, but just a simple timeline for the grind as I see it:
SoA:
Worst grind was probably slayer deeds, like those in Carn Dum. Almost no dailies. Only unreasonable thing for me to complete were slayer-deeds in Ettens and rank there.
You did an instance, gear dropped, you rolled for it, if you got it you could be happy with your new ready-to-use gear.
MoM:
LI was added, which were very much grind compared to SoA. T6 relics were a pain to farm.
Housing items from new bosses didn't have 100% drop rate as the old ones did. Not too bad, except the super-rare drop from Turtle (and other bosses later on).
Quite some dailies, like in Lothlorien.
SoM:
Skirmish. Much grind to get marks, at first. Slayer-deeds in Skirmish are not very funny. Like to kill lots of lieutenants that only spawns in raid. Or to kill 10 000 monsters in Survival: Barrow Downs in each of the 3 group sizes and grey mobs don't count. Not very reasonable, I'd say.
RoI:
Nothing special really.
RoR:
Slightly more grind with horse and its LI etc, not too bad.
Random drops from Warbands makes it a grind if you want all cosmetics and decorations.
Hytbold. 44 days of dailies, not counting rewards. What did devs say again, "We don't have any new instances, but we have something that is so much better as endgame, you're gonna love it". Yeah, right.
Wildermore dailies. Much the same as Hytbold. Not very fun end-game.
HD:
Big battles are like Skirmishes except you have to "level up" again. Not too bad, except you "have to" complete all side quests in platinum in all different group sizes.
Fangorn. Crazy farm for those cosmetic pets. Can understand they made it a grind as they were the first ones available, and they made it easier (thank God), but I think it's too much.
Only dailies are Warbands which gives 2 tokens each. I have the horses, but to get my return-skill and the recipes for Woodworker I need 590 more tokens. Yay.
Beyond HD:
DA was a grind much like Hytbold.
Rep with Ringlo Vale, Dor-en-Ernil and Lebennin was pretty grindy.
Essence gear and imbued LIs are very grindy (as covered in this thread).
Cosmetic pets which are random drops from Warbands in Dead Marshes are grindy. Takes a while to even get there, mounts disallowed, and one of them is a 3-man.
Festivals:
I used to think festivals were here to be a fun part of the game, to allow you to take a break from questing or endgame to relax and have fun. This is not the case anymore. Almost every festival means some intensive days or weeks of grinding, only to get the new rewards. And if I miss a festival two times, I have to pay with cash for the mount.
Almost every year they slightly increase the price of rewards.
Treasure Hunt is too slow and grindy to be enjoyable.
Hobnanigans is much the same as Treasure Hunt, except that it's insane. I spent 20 minutes there, got 5 tokens. To get all pets I need around 8000 tokens. Then there are other rewards. And this event is only on couple days now and then.

Again, I'm not saying all grind is bad. There are few grinds that I find unreasonable, and I can try to ignore them. Though for every thing I have to ignore I feel less motivated to do other stuff. Like, having a goal to be able to say "I have done everything in game except this and this and this" is not as motivating as "I have done everything in game". I don't very much mind the grind for gear, even if it's ridiculous right now. But they really let the grind bleed into stuff that's supposed to be there for fun. Like decorations, outfits, festivals, pets. They also made many of those exclusive to Store, and the game in general is getting way too focused around both grind and the Store.
For me the big problem is not really a single grind. For me it's that there are so MANY grinds, and most are borderline unreasonable on themselves. It's really rare they remove or nerf a grind, so they all stack up unless you're actively grinding. That surely makes me ask myself if it's really worth it nowadays. And no, I don't have to do it if I don't want to. But I used to enjoy this game, and I used to be able to complete my goals, but that is not the case anymore with all the grind. Only thing that keeps me going is that I have completed so much already, I am "almost there". If I started playing today I would probably just quest through the game just because it's in Middle-earth and then more or less abandon it.

Another thing I think is very demotivating is the fact that this game is so alt-unfriendly. It focuses more on the on the character itself than the player or account. Like that all deeds are per char instead of per account. Most items are bound to char instead of to account (glad they at least added "Bind to account" some years back). Most pay-to-win-stuff (and other stuff) from Store is per char, not per account. This also becomes worse with the grind (as mentioned in this thread). Levelling itself is nothing in comparison. Getting virtues is not so bad. But when I've spent weeks or months grinding on my main, I'm not very motivated to start doing it all over on my alt. It's not even enough to just level and grind, you also "need" to spend real money to get stat-buffs, vault space, LI-slots and whatnot.

Even though I'm a lifetime VIP this game feels more and more like those cheap F2P mobile-games that tells you "You can either do this, it will take a week or two, OR.. you can just give us £50 and we'll take care of that for you".

When talking about how some people might or might not experience that "there is nothing to do", let's not forget the nerfs they've done in the past. They removed many group-quests on lower levels, they made whole epic soloable, they removed radiance since it was too grindy (not compared to today), they added an option to buy level 50 for cash (along with other buffs from Store). This made the process of levelling up much more smooth, which I think is good now with more levels. But my point is, it feels like they concentrated the grind/time-sink to rather few things on max level. I think in general, with some exceptions, the problem is that the grind is not spread out enough. Many things are (too?) easy, while some requires very much time.

Now this became a wall of text!

Regards

Edit:
Some new thoughts.
It used to be:
* Get gear, be happy
* Get kindred, buy rewards with gold
Now it is:
* Get a token. Get lots more. Get "empty" gear. Get a token. Get lots more. Get essence. Repeat. (And similar with LI)
* Get kindred, farm tokens for some weeks, buy rewards with tokens