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

[Hurin]

Pretty obvious, what else are you going to do? Complain of NOTHING to do? Not like there was a cap increase, or raids and instances, the grind is the end game. Once its over you become like me, log in here and there, realize nothing to do so you log out and do something else.

Incrementing the denominator on a grind that is based around weeks upon weeks of monotonous mini-content, and largely the exact same content that was required prior to the denominator changing is. . . how to put this. . . not enjoyable content in any way, shape, or form. I've yet to hear anyone say that the DA dailies aren't terribly boring after the first twenty go-rounds. And yet we're supposed to celebrate it all and be grateful because it's "something to do." Nevermind that the "something to do" is almost certainly designed to be a very frustrating, demoralizing "something to do" so that you'll instead hand over cash so that you won't have to do that "something to do."

Hey, are you bored? Well, I can send you a baseball bat with instructions to hit yourself in the jimmy two or three times per day. It may not be enjoyable. But, hey, it's something to do. So be grateful.

[Lilywarrior]

Just to be devil's advocate...has anyone done one of the following and compared the dps and/or survivability of their toon:

a) refused to imbue their LIs and use the "old" LI weapons/items

b) refused to equip a Legendary weapon at all (using crafted or instance drops) and just have a secondary Legendary item (non-imbued) equipped

My husband has a captain and has refused to imbue his weapon. He is pretty frustrated by the game now for all the reasons you've read here and in other places. He thinks the game's raids topped out with the Rift and it is has been on a downward slide ever since. Other than the hour he logged on 2 days ago he hasn't played in about 2 months. He said that it is not the imbuement system. It is boredom.

[olanath]

You're missing the point. The old players had time - tons of it, to cover those regions. The level cap is static, not moving. Newly capped players reach end game level, but are not end game weapon ready - for what took older players 1.5 years to grind. 6 months from now, newly capped players will need two years to do what older players did in two years, to get to the same place. While the level cap isn't moving, but end level character progression is, the lines get further and further away from each other.
When those new players reach cap, they can do DA training (not a minute before). That's one empo every two days from that. If they do MT, that's one Empo every three days from that. Add to that the handful they will get from the epic (that old players also got), and it doesn't amount to being able to keep up. They do not have two older alts running for them, collecting marks, meds and other tokens like your warden does. You say your warden is 92, so it's likely he will reach cap before the next update, and the 44 per legacy is looking daunting, and you say that with two other alts that are already collecting to help. What if your warden doesn't cap until next Spring. how will the legacies look to you when they are at 55? Or if he caps next fall, when they are at 77?

What do you think will happen if we ever do get that Shelob raid that people are pretty much counting on? All the people that started the journey when DA update arrived will be weapon ready. All those that cap just a little while before the raid is released will be nowhere near weapon ready - yet, they will all be at cap and eligible to run it. Do you think Shelob's dps will be matched with the players that have weapons they have been growing for three years (at that point)? Or will they match her dps to the players that just became level cap and have normal level 100 weapons?

It won't matter which, the result will be the same - imbalance on one side or the other.

I don't think you're factoring the regular quest currencies. My first characters that did DA had no imbuement, so all the silver pieces went to essences or other things I won't need. There are 3 Gondor zones that can get you scrolls of empowerment, just from questing. I'm sure I'll do the a few of the dailies before I go to the following Gondor zone, but I won't need to linger long. I'm going to need to do epic battles for the essences, and I'll get waaay more than enough Stars of Merit for scrolls before I get all the essences I want. But just from questing, I'll have teal and major essences to tide me over until I get all supreme. But I'm not going to do just landscape quests and epic battles for the scrolls. I'll do instances, pvp, roving threats, and Osg runs. The thing is, I'm not going to do those with the purpose of getting scrolls. I'm going to do them anyway, just like my other alts did. I'm going to do all that because that's part of playing the game. I did all those things with my previous characters, only they didn't get scrolls with them, because you couldn't. I will be doing the exact same things my other alts did, but I will get way more scrolls than I used to. That's why it's easier now. The scrolls come quicker and sooner.

[Hurin]

My husband has a captain and has refused to imbue his weapon. He is pretty frustrated by the game now for all the reasons you've read here and in other places.

Oh! So a lot of your posts makes more sense now. Not their content, mind you. Just the tone, antagonism, projection, and needles ad hominem against "raiders" and the like. Maybe you should talk more openly to your husband rather than projecting your disappointment with him onto internet strangers. Your marriage will be better for it.

[Arnenna]

My husband has a captain and has refused to imbue his weapon. He is pretty frustrated by the game now for all the reasons you've read here and in other places. He thinks the game's raids topped out with the Rift and it is has been on a downward slide ever since. Other than the hour he logged on 2 days ago he hasn't played in about 2 months. He said that it is not the imbuement system. It is boredom.

And why do you (or he) think he is bored?

The only thing that has changed, is the grind. It's the grind that has brought on the boredom.

[Hurin]

And why do you (or he) think he is bored?

The only thing that has changed, is the grind. It's the grind that has brought on the boredom.

To be fair, time and inevitable burn-out also factor into it. Even if the grind had remained exactly the same and constant (it hasn't), some people would still burn out and quit out of boredom.

It's so demonstrably not the case, however, that the quality and quantity of the grind haven't changed though, that these assertions (which we've seen since the beginning and that I used to make myself) that grind is inherent to MMOs and people should just learn to deal, are just silly. The amount of rose tint on those glasses must be astounding.

[Arnenna]

I don't think you're factoring the regular quest currencies. My first characters that did DA had no imbuement, so all the silver pieces went to essences or other things I won't need. There are 3 Gondor zones that can get you scrolls of empowerment, just from questing. I'm sure I'll do the a few of the dailies before I go to the following Gondor zone, but I won't need to linger long. I'm going to need to do epic battles for the essences, and I'll get waaay more than enough Stars of Merit for scrolls before I get all the essences I want. But just from questing, I'll have teal and major essences to tide me over until I get all supreme. But I'm not going to do just landscape quests and epic battles for the scrolls. I'll do instances, pvp, roving threats, and Osg runs. The thing is, I'm not going to do those with the purpose of getting scrolls. I'm going to do them anyway, just like my other alts did. I'm going to do all that because that's part of playing the game. I did all those things with my previous characters, only they didn't get scrolls with them, because you couldn't. I will be doing the exact same things my other alts did, but I will get way more scrolls than I used to. That's why it's easier now. The scrolls come quicker and sooner.

You won't get many from questing. Landscape tokens do not buy empowerment scrolls, Daily tokens do - and they are very limited for a new player. How many BB's do you intend running to be able to get all those scrolls. How many hours a day do you intent running to cover all those, plus dailies, plus all the quests, the epics, the warbands, the roving threats, instances, raids and anything else you wish to add. Are your main's going to go into retirement when your warden does all of this? Or are they going to be helping (new players don't get that). You did get scrolls with your older chars - of course you did - you are just looking at it too literally, like Lilywarrior is. You may not have had them in your hands as actual scrolls, but they were grinding all the currency way back then (since DA), so that you could buy them now. You haven't been grinding the Ili system only since it came in, you were grinding DA long before it's existence, and gathering up DA tokens in your bank long before we got it (newly capped players don't have that). And how maxed do you want to take your warden? Tank only? Tank and dps for solo grinding? That's double the grind if you want both.

[bucko39]

And why do you (or he) think he is bored?

The only thing that has changed, is the grind. It's the grind that has brought on the boredom.

Perhaps not the only thing. The Epic story line aside, I think the narrative has suffered a great deal.
I've said it before, but I feel more disconnected from the lore and story than any time since I've been playing.
There could be other factors to that as well. I always assumed that when we reached Minas Tirith, that I would be standing outside the gates with the kin that introduced me to the game.
However, thanks to Turbine's poor decisions, the majority--if not all--of my old kin has moved on to other games.
If the story was still on point, if the sense of community wasn't lost...maybe the focus on the grind wouldn't be there so much.

[Arnenna]

Perhaps not the only thing. The Epic story line aside, I think the narrative has suffered a great deal.
I've said it before, but I feel more disconnected from the lore and story than any time since I've been playing.
There could be other factors to that as well. I always assumed that when we reached Minas Tirith, that I would be standing outside the gates with the kin that introduced me to the game.
However, thanks to Turbine's poor decisions, the majority--if not all--of my old kin has moved on to other games.
If the story was still on point, if the sense of community wasn't lost...maybe the focus on the grind wouldn't be there so much.

This is very true. Sad, but very true.

[siipperi]

Actually, they are not all weapons; 2 weapons and 2 class items... and they are imbued and at 331/341, 43/44 today.

I can be smart ### as well. Those LIs aren't maxed.

but you are still evading the question.

How long did it take you to grind for those 4 weapons?

Lets try and figure it out.

July 2014, Gondor arrived. Assuming you got to DA and got rep for training straight away, and that until June 2015 you could only get three gold tokens a day off one character, that would give you 840 gold tokens of Dol Amroth (not even going to guess if you would get the 2520 silver tokens you would also need) to buy 84 empowerment scrolls. That's one weapons counted for.
June 2015 U16.2 arrived, and you could then get 7 gold tokens each day on one character. From then until two weeks ago, that would have netted you about 980 gold tokens of DA (which you would have had to couple with 2980 silver tokens), and that would have got you a further 98 empowerment scrolls. So there is your second weapon accounted for.

None of that included starlits and remembrance, which we could assume you got from skirms and instances if your rng was favourable.

So, now we just have two LI items to account for, and as all your DA from one character is accounted for, you would still require . . .

half a million marks and 100K medallions to max those two.

I'm not saying here that you have not done this grind, I'm saying, that if you have, it took you over 1.5 years to do it.

You think a newly capped player can catch up with your 1.5 years worth of grinding, when they reach Dol Amroth now? Or tomorrow? Or next week?

Newsflash . . . .They can't, and even if they did by some miracle manage it, by the time they do, they will have the next grind to come, which you are already grinding for now, if you have already done the last grind.

You didn't grind your Uli's in 2 weeks at all, not anywhere near. You took 1.5 years to do it. A player that started playing the game 6 months ago, and is capping this week, cannot do this

If im not wrong getting 40 starlits would require 20k stars of merits, getting that amount of currency is nearly impossible in a month and even if person has imbued items already on the old cap getting the grind finished in 2h player per night in 2 weeks is probably highly doubtful. But there was always possibility to use BB box exploit to get tens of thousands of SMs and skip the grind and pretend it's piece of cake.

[DiogoVP]

easy solution for newly capped players: raise the levelcap, let lvl105/110 legendary items start with legacies like a lvl100 which has used 80 scrolls of empowerment. let traitpoints be bought via shop. and let there be a better way to get essences (and upgrade them). like a merchant, which sells green or even purple essences for gold. 1-5g each essence. unlimited.
dont let crystals and empscrolls for lvl100 be used on the 105/110 legendaries, if you are above rank40. but up to 40, they should be useable.
and extremely lower the prices for lvl100 items, as 105/110 will be actual.

tadaa, newly capped players will have an easier entry.

horizontal progression is ####, if you are months or years behind.

Interesting idea, but knowing Turbine they will probably make the lvl 105/110 SoE cost more than the current Anfallas SoE and then make us have to unlock another 100 scrolls of empowerment with them. I'd rather have them make the anfallas scroll universal for all LIs starting from level 100 and have them always at a reasonable cost. The pricing of the scrolls and crystals right now is the biggest issue there is with the ILI system and it's why the grind is so heavy. I personally don't have many things against the essence grind, as I mostly just go for the greater ones, but I do have a very very nice idea on an improvement to the essence system that would benefit us in a lot of ways (even decreasing the grind), but I am not gonna share it in the forums just yet.

[olanath]

You won't get many from questing. Landscape tokens do not buy empowerment scrolls, Daily tokens do - and they are very limited for a new player. How many BB's do you intend running to be able to get all those scrolls. How many hours a day do you intent running to cover all those, plus dailies, plus all the quests, the epics, the warbands, the roving threats, instances, raids and anything else you wish to add. Are your main's going to go into retirement when your warden does all of this? Or are they going to be helping (new players don't get that). You did get scrolls with your older chars - of course you did - you are just looking at it too literally, like Lilywarrior is. You may not have had them in your hands as actual scrolls, but they were grinding all the currency way back then (since DA), so that you could buy them now. You haven't been grinding the Ili system only since it came in, you were grinding DA long before it's existence, and gathering up DA tokens in your bank long before we got it (newly capped players don't have that). And how maxed do you want to take your warden? Tank only? Tank and dps for solo grinding? That's double the grind if you want both.

In West Gondor, landscape tokens DO buy empowerment scrolls, on top of the training dailies. And I don't plan to spend hours a day running all this stuff. I didn't spend hours a day maxing my other characters' LIs. But now the conversation is steering away from what I originally said: A new character has an easier time to max an LI and get essences than an old one. This has nothing to do with how I play my warden, or how many LIs I plan to make. I'm not saying the grind is easy. It's not at all, but a new lvl 100 has it easier. I have stocked up a grand total of 0 DA tokens. I spent them all on my old characters, because that was one of the only ways to earn them. It was a pain, boring, and made me not want to imbue ever again. But more methods have been added since. I don't need to grind these dailies to such an extreme. I'm not going to be getting 4 slot armor, so that's all extra scrolls right there. I'm not going to get a full set of gold HD jewelry, since I"m going to be getting crafted/Pel stuff, so that's even more. I'm not going to craft another essence ever again, since that's a drain on time and resources.

Like I said, I'm not trying to say that the grind is easy. Far from it. But with all the options available, my warden will have an easier go of it, and without any help from alts.

[Arnenna]

In West Gondor, landscape tokens DO buy empowerment scrolls, on top of the training dailies. And I don't plan to spend hours a day running all this stuff. I didn't spend hours a day maxing my other characters' LIs. But now the conversation is steering away from what I originally said: A new character has an easier time to max an LI and get essences than an old one. This has nothing to do with how I play my warden, or how many LIs I plan to make. I'm not saying the grind is easy. It's not at all, but a new lvl 100 has it easier. I have stocked up a grand total of 0 DA tokens. I spent them all on my old characters, because that was one of the only ways to earn them. It was a pain, boring, and made me not want to imbue ever again. But more methods have been added since. I don't need to grind these dailies to such an extreme. I'm not going to be getting 4 slot armor, so that's all extra scrolls right there. I'm not going to get a full set of gold HD jewelry, since I"m going to be getting crafted/Pel stuff, so that's even more. I'm not going to craft another essence ever again, since that's a drain on time and resources.

Like I said, I'm not trying to say that the grind is easy. Far from it. But with all the options available, my warden will have an easier go of it, and without any help from alts.

So basically, you are going to bypass most of the other grinds, to sub your LI grind and produce a good warden, but not the best warden that you can get. Perfect for you, not so much for many other players that do not wish to have to rob Peter to pay Paul. I really hope you have all this so snuggly in the bag when you come to bringing alt number 5, 6, or 8 up to speed.


Anyhow, there isn''t much more that I can add to the thread now without going around in never ending circles. I've added examples of why this silly grind is completely alt/new player unfriendly. When compared to the pre-imbue system, this is an epic fail. Newly capped players and alts need access points into the horizontal pathway. Either that, or the grind costs need to be significantly reduced. I hope Turbine are reading, and more aptly, taking it in.

[olanath]

So basically, you are going to bypass most of the other grinds, to sub your LI grind and produce a good warden, but not the best warden that you can get. Perfect for you, not so much for many other players that do not wish to have to rob Peter to pay Paul. I really hope you have all this so snuggly in the bag when you come to bringing alt number 5, 6, or 8 up to speed.


Anyhow, there isn''t much more that I can add to the thread now without going around in never ending circles. I've added examples of why this silly grind is completely alt/new player unfriendly. When compared to the pre-imbue system, this is an epic fail. Newly capped players and alts need access points into the horizontal pathway. Either that, or the grind costs need to be significantly reduced. I hope Turbine are reading, and more aptly, taking it in.

Oh, come on now. I'm not bypassing any grinds except the ones that don't improve my character. I won't get the 4-slot armor because I don't need it. I'll get the MT 3 slot stuff to tide me over until I'm able to slowly get the 5-slot stuff. I won't get full gold jewelry because the Pel gold ring and the crafted essence jewelry will fill in or be better than some of it (just like my mini, who deliberately stayed away from full gold because the buff was horrible). The grind seemed so bad at first because at the end of each Gondor zone, that was what you went for. It had something that was better than what you had, so we grinded for it. Gold HD jewelry was the cream of the crop, but now there's some better. 4 slot armor was the best, now there's better. Countless reflecting pool essence runs were the way to get essences, but no longer. The Osg instances had an awesome cloak, but now there's a gold one waiting for me. Just because we had to do these grinds to get the best there was at that time, doesn't mean a new lvl 100 has to. They can reach the same state that we are in at the end without needing to do that same work to get there.

[Vexendynamus]

I begin to believe the Imbue Weapon System of Lord of the Rings Online was built to mirror the Reincarnation System of Dungeons and Dragons Online.

Over in DDO, a character may acquire something like 80 past lives through a process called Reincarnation. Each time a character reaches a certain level, he or she may choose to Reincarnate, essentially starting over but gaining a small, permanent buff for the next go around. Over time, characters with many reincarnations become extremely powerful.

It costs about 5,000 Turbine Points to bypass one Reincarnation loop, and so about 400,000 Turbine Points to bypass them all. Obviously, this potentially generates a ton of revenue from so called 'whales'.

In many ways, Imbued Weapons function like the Reincarnation loop. You repeat old content again and again, slowly increasing character power by adding Scrolls of Empowerment and Starlit Crystals to weapons. A single Scroll of Empowerment costs about 300 Turbine Points, and a single Star-lit Crystal costs about 400 Turbine Points, in a ratio of about 9 to 1. When our weapons can absorb 585 Scrolls and 65 Crystals each (x2), the total bypass cost will approach the current total DDO Reincarnation bypass cost (all numbers approximate).

I doubt things will get quite that bad, since such calculations do not factor in Essences and so forth, but it illustrates where things could go.

In DDO, new content including Raids, which appear somewhat regularly despite a much smaller player base, are balanced around well built first or perhaps second life characters. Characters with all 80 past lives are essentially goddesses and gods, able to easily solo practically everything. Players with powerful characters constantly complain about the lack of difficulty, but the developers are in a bind. They cannot raise difficulty above the level of newer players as it would drastically reduce the pool of players willing to buy that content, and they cannot wipe away the Reincarnation system without losing income.

Back to where I started, I begin to believe we can see the future of LORTO by looking at the past of DDO, and if so, the grind will get much worse, not better.

Sadly, while these discussions about how best to implement lateral advancement are important, the bigger issue with LOTRO is the lack of fun things to do for level capped characters run by players of all types. I would not mind Imbued Weapons, Essences, and so forth so much if the activities to reasonably advance them were fun. Also, when did Turbine decide we must play this game 24/7? It was not always so. If Turbine gets $40 US from each of us, per year, on average, what does it matter if a given person plays one minute or one million minutes? There must be a better way to generate revenue than the current MMO model Turbine is following.

[Thorgrum]

I think that's what most of us in this thread object to more than the actual grind itself.

Looking at what's needed, especially if I want to try to recreate the LIs I had at RoI (which was 2 per trait line with another pair for PvMP), that would take me an incredible amount of time because of the grind associated with the LIs. That's also not including any gear adjustments.

Without the group content, or even a chunk of landscape content that is challenging that doesn't get nerfed (like what happened to that one DA landscape raid area), there's next to no reason to actually do the grind. This ties into the problem with the Osgillaith instances being generally poorly designed, because lots of trash = boredom. It's more fun to do instances where the trash has been minimized, and you're hopping from miniboss to miniboss (like 2-3 minibosses/encounters before a final boss with light trash connecting each).

You and others in this thread are presenting the grind as if you must do it. When you, I and them know the lvl 60 LI's from moria suffice to complete most of the content to lvl 95 (ive done it) including T1 raids. If the argument is Turbine helped to create the illusion that the grind was necessary okay I can see that but this is mostly a player driven condition.

A 3rd ager with moderate LI's and a few mid level gems is enough dps to do nearly every thing at cap with the exception of T2 and small group pvp (you'd be fine with a large group or a dedicated healer). No one is forcing the OP to grind let alone proclaiming its necessary. In addition to that you can buy most of the #### for the LI in the store for TP. The player base being an older MMO, has created the conditions by which they "need" to grind. Turbine never held a gun to peoples head and said "level 5 alts and then min/max them every level cap."

They took advantage of that yes, but the choice to grind and accommodate alts is 100% on the player.

[Hurin]

You and others in this thread are presenting the grind as if you must do it.

I'm not in the habit of playing games so that I can turn my nose up at its design and eschew vast swaths of it.

Doing so seems especially unappealing when those swaths of the game are so disagreeable intentionally, beyond all reason and precedent, because Turbine literally generates revenue by annoying their customers and causing them to despair of playing (parts of) their game.

So "must" and need don't really enter into it. I'm not interested in a game that's so bad in parts that I just skip it. And it's worthwhile pointing out that they aren't likely to see any further revenue from me and those who think like me so long as this trend continues. But, then, of course, they're betting that for every person like me, there's a "whale" out there that spends enough to bypass these grinds that they make up for me, and ten people just like me.

--H

[yvandriel]

edit: apologies for inept multi quoting-each time I try I lose half my post. This is my third attempt. It is on the wrong account becaue I do't dare try to switch again in case I lose it all despite copy pasting.
Calta.

Nope, that is not what I said. I said that my second main has not started DA yet. However, she is full kindred With Dol Amroth and full acquaintance with the Bank, the Docks, The Armoury, the Great Hall, the Library. the Warehouse, the Swan-knights. She is 3,500/10K with the Mason. I gave a friend's char enough coins to get him to the same and I will be giving my historian the same before she ever enters DA. She has just started Helm's Dike. She's LM. I don't play her often, but I wanted her to become by second alternate main someday.

and no, I am not saying I earned everything in two weeks. I said I have made 4 FA imbued legendaries in two weeks.

You are very disingenuous then

paraphrasing some of your statements cause i can't be bothered wading through 1000s of words that contradict each other

"oops I maxed 4 LIs in 2 weeks" but you said you spent 18 months grinding DA dailies and tokens and doing 100s of BBs -you even showed us the content of your wallet to prove it

"I don't group much" but If you got all those marks and meds you claim to have spent on your LIs soloing BBs you must have been doing them since HD every time they were off cooldown. edit: or used the BB exploit?
"I want my LIs maxed on my alt so I can craft" but "I raid" but "raiders are....insult insult insult"

"posters opposing the grind are whiners who want things handed to them" but "give me access to all crafts at all levels instantly through a universal toolkit."

"I don't play like someone with no RL committments. I have a rich fulfilling life, unlike you whiners/Arnenna" but I have done everything to max 4 imbued LIs, have several nearly finsihed alts, craft for two hours a night [edited to add] and have so many tokens and rep to spare I can max my alts and give away enough to max another person's main. All while playing as little as someone with a family, a full time job and other multiple interests. I am astounded-I have a kinnie who is the most organised player I know and is full time carer of two small kids and even he gave up on kitting out his bear for PVP despite grinding DA dailies on 7 level 100s daily. I call shenanigans.

Also how did you get the remembrance crystals-hobbit boxes? the slot machine RNG must love you. Or, is it, as I suspect, given your wow history, and the other stuff you have revealed, you have bought a lot of stuff for cash . Which is the reason not being able to collect mats for other crafts while on your capped characters is the only thing grindy enough for you want to change. Because you can't buy mats in the store.

Either way your contributions are rendered meaningless as you change your argument and the facts about your play-style every few posts.

Vexendynamus


Back to where I started, I begin to believe we can see the future of LORTO by looking at the past of DDO, and if so, the grind will get much worse, not better.

Sadly, while these discussions about how best to implement lateral advancement are important, the bigger issue with LOTRO is the lack of fun things to do for level capped characters run by players of all types. I would not mind Imbued Weapons, Essences, and so forth so much if the activities to reasonably advance them were fun. Also, when did Turbine decide we must play this game 24/7? It was not always so. If Turbine gets $40 US from each of us, per year, on average, what does it matter if a given person plays one minute or one million minutes? There must be a better way to generate revenue than the current MMO model Turbine is following.

I suspect you are correct about the grind becoming worse. I agree the inherent problem is we have no real purpose, other than the grind, these days.

Thorgrum

Quote Originally Posted by Almagnus1 View Post
I think that's what most of us in this thread object to more than the actual grind itself.

Looking at what's needed, especially if I want to try to recreate the LIs I had at RoI (which was 2 per trait line with another pair for PvMP), that would take me an incredible amount of time because of the grind associated with the LIs. That's also not including any gear adjustments.

Without the group content, or even a chunk of landscape content that is challenging that doesn't get nerfed (like what happened to that one DA landscape raid area), there's next to no reason to actually do the grind. This ties into the problem with the Osgillaith instances being generally poorly designed, because lots of trash = boredom. It's more fun to do instances where the trash has been minimized, and you're hopping from miniboss to miniboss (like 2-3 minibosses/encounters before a final boss with light trash connecting each).

You and others in this thread are presenting the grind as if you must do it. When you, I and them know the lvl 60 LI's from moria suffice to complete most of the content to lvl 95 (ive done it) including T1 raids. If the argument is Turbine helped to create the illusion that the grind was necessary okay I can see that but this is mostly a player driven condition.

A 3rd ager with moderate LI's and a few mid level gems is enough dps to do nearly every thing at cap with the exception of T2 and small group pvp (you'd be fine with a large group or a dedicated healer). No one is forcing the OP to grind let alone proclaiming its necessary. In addition to that you can buy most of the #### for the LI in the store for TP. The player base being an older MMO, has created the conditions by which they "need" to grind. Turbine never held a gun to peoples head and said "level 5 alts and then min/max them every level cap."

They took advantage of that yes, but the choice to grind and accommodate alts is 100% on the player.

Dear Thorgrum
While you are of course correct that players bring it on themselves by choosing to partake of the grind game, some of us actually do want to max our characters and gear in order to do tier 2 content successfully and to PvP. Because that is the end game. Others want to feel like things are easier the better the character and gear gets-so goddess mode on the landscape is their reward for effort.

When the effort doesn't fit the reward because
a) the goal is not achievable in game, (horizontal progression to max a new character)
or b) the rewards are trivial (god mode on the landscape is achievable anyway)
then boredom sets in. Which maybe one reason you and others don't play much any more. And those of us who do resent the grind.

I think the current approach is not a good long term business model. But I suspect long term is not in the equation for this game at the moment.

[Thorgrum]

You are very disingenuous then

paraphrasing some of your statements cause i can't be bothered wading through 1000s of words that contradict each other

"oops I maxed 4 LIs in 2 weeks" but you said you spent 18 months grinding DA dailies and tokens and doing 100s of BBs -you even showed us the content of your wallet to prove it If you got all those marks and meds you claim to have spent on your LIs soloing BBs you must have been doing them since HD every time they were off cooldown.
"I don't group much" "I want my LIs maxed on my alt so I can craft" but "I raid" but "raiders are....insult insult insult"

"posters opposing the grind are whiners who want things handed to them" but "give me access to all crafts at all levels instantly through a universal toolkit."

Also how did you get the remembrance crystals-hobbit boxes? the slot machine RNG must love you. Or, is it, as I suspect, given your wow history, and the other stuff you have revealed, you have bought a lot of stuff for cash . Which is the reason not being able to collect mats for other crafts while on your capped characters is the only thing grindy enough for you want to change. Because you can't buy mats in the store.

Either way your contributions are rendered meaningless as you change your argument and the facts about your play-style every few posts.




I suspect you are correct about the grind becoming worse. I agree the inherent problem is we have no real purpose, other than the grind, these days.




While you are of course correct that players bring it on themselves by choosing to partake of the grind game, some of us actually do want to max our charcters and gear in order to do tier 2 content successfully and to PvP. Because that is the end game. Others want to feel like things are easier the better the charcter and gear gets-so goddess mode on the landscape is their reward for effort. When the effort doesn't fit the reward because
a) the goal is unachievable in game, (horizontal progression to max a new charatcer)
or b) the rewards are trivial (god mode on the landscape is achievable anyway)
then boredom sets in. Which maybe one reason you and others don't play much any more.

I dont play much anymore because its not very challenging and the company running the game is horrible. I mean they managed to essentially kill a Tolkien, DC comics and Dungeons and Dragons games. They literally have to be the worst gaming company on the planet to #### up those 3 titles each one has a built in fan base, talk about slam dunks.

At no time in my thousands of posts here do I blame Turbine for my choices. Ive said a lot on these forums but ive labored to be fair to Turbine and believe me I do not have a high opinion of this company. The under development of PvP which could have been there long term end game solution when they stopped making raids annoys me and I tried to stick it out. In the end 85% of the #### people complain about on the forum in the game is of there own creation. So we get bored, I dont know when I subbed there wasnt a section guaranteeing me unlimited hours of engaging entertainment. Implicit in the arrangement was that I would take the world and material they created and make it entertaining based on my like of tolkien.

Players dont want to take responsibility for there part in the current state. On the contrary they want to complain again about a grind there consumption justifies. Ive said this many times on these forums, you want to change the product offering of level cap grinds and redundant content stop paying for it over and over and over and over. Its almost as if some of these people think that by giving turbine money for the very thing they are complaining about that turbine will stop developing the product, that the player are paying for.

This is a good example of how people like me can accurately come to the forums and pontificate about the player bases stupidity. Its like going to get a coffee every day "cream and sugar please" the leave out the sugar. You go back day after day and ask for sugar, they dont give it to you. You start to complain about not having coffee with sugar, you argue with the store manager, you tell your friends you hem and haw. Yet, every day you go back and buy the coffee, and they still dont give you the sugar.

[Calta]

I dont play much anymore because its not very challenging and the company running the game is horrible. I mean they managed to essentially kill a Tolkien, DC comics and Dungeons and Dragons games. They literally have to be the worst gaming company on the planet to #### up those 3 titles each one has a built in fan base, talk about slam dunks.

At no time in my thousands of posts here do I blame Turbine for my choices. Ive said a lot on these forums but ive labored to be fair to Turbine and believe me I do not have a high opinion of this company. The under development of PvP which could have been there long term end game solution when they stopped making raids annoys me and I tried to stick it out. In the end 85% of the #### people complain about on the forum in the game is of there own creation. So we get bored, I dont know when I subbed there wasnt a section guaranteeing me unlimited hours of engaging entertainment. Implicit in the arrangement was that I would take the world and material they created and make it entertaining based on my like of tolkien.

Players dont want to take responsibility for there part in the current state. On the contrary they want to complain again about a grind there consumption justifies. Ive said this many times on these forums, you want to change the product offering of level cap grinds and redundant content stop paying for it over and over and over and over. Its almost as if some of these people think that by giving turbine money for the very thing they are complaining about that turbine will stop developing the product, that the player are paying for.

This is a good example of how people like me can accurately come to the forums and pontificate about the player bases stupidity. Its like going to get a coffee every day "cream and sugar please" the leave out the sugar. You go back day after day and ask for sugar, they dont give it to you. You start to complain about not having coffee with sugar, you argue with the store manager, you tell your friends you hem and haw. Yet, every day you go back and buy the coffee, and they still dont give you the sugar.

I agree. I play mostly to have fun doing stuff with friends, to enjoy the world, and now to improve my PvP and have a laugh while doing it. I get a lot f my affiliation needs met in this game because...well... personal stuff.

I guess I am a bit silly to pay for this, but these 3 things justify my sub at the moment. I forgo my store bought coffee (i don't take sugar! :P) to pay for these simple pleasures. But I do wish turbine would listen. Because I have unsubbed a couple of times in the last 12 months. And if my kin completely disappears into other games...well I may have to investigate them instead.

So, I guess I'll keep complaining to the store manager in the desparate hope things will improve. The MT crafting and the epic story, shows me some things have changed for the better.

Suggestion: Perhaps if we could trade up old landscape tokens to the new ones every expansion, , that small amelioration would help alts. *shrug*

[BangoTwinkletoes]

You and others in this thread are presenting the grind as if you must do it.

I liken it to taking my family on a long and tedious 12 hour drive down to the Dordogne in SW France, only when we get there I tell them that there's no luxury holiday villa with a swimming pool and magnificent views but instead we're going to drive straight home instead. Because that's the nub - there's no content at the end of the grind, nothing at all about the game experience that cannot be done at earlier levels and with lesser equipment & stats except more and more grind. There is one exception - pvp - but that's akin to driving all the way down to the Dordogne only to put my family up in the French equivalent of Butlins.

It's so ironic that in a game such as LOTRO, which has always traditionally one of the most mature communities of any MMO, that Turbine has well and truly established the "phat l00tz" culture as an end in itself, that is great for the e-peeners of this world but not for the rest of us. It would be interesting to see the statistics of how player characters are distributed across the various levels, because I am certain that, for those who are still actively playing, that most game-time is spent on playing through the pre lvl 50 SOA content - which of course has none of the idiotic gear grinds.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

What's a Butlins?

Are you making up stuff again?

Google is your friend, on in your case most likely your only friend. Those of us in the UK know very well what Butlins is and what it stands for - do some research and you might just for once learn something useful.

[Arnenna]

What's a Butlins?

Are you making up stuff again?

Butlins is what one settles for, when the Seychelles becomes to such a state that it is not worth the money you pay for it any longer.

Nothing at all wrong with Butlins of course, it makes for a nice holiday break for a fair price - but it will never be the Seychelles.

When the Seychelles becomes more like Butlins because it no longer gives higher quality and desired things to do - Butlins become the winner, because everybody goes there, instead of the Seychelles.

In essence, you can do everything at Butlins, that you can do in the Seychelles, except sunbathe. Remove the sun, and it loses it's pulling power.

[Arnenna]

You and others in this thread are presenting the grind as if you must do it. When you, I and them know the lvl 60 LI's from moria suffice to complete most of the content to lvl 95 (ive done it) including T1 raids. If the argument is Turbine helped to create the illusion that the grind was necessary okay I can see that but this is mostly a player driven condition.

A 3rd ager with moderate LI's and a few mid level gems is enough dps to do nearly every thing at cap with the exception of T2 and small group pvp (you'd be fine with a large group or a dedicated healer). No one is forcing the OP to grind let alone proclaiming its necessary. In addition to that you can buy most of the #### for the LI in the store for TP. The player base being an older MMO, has created the conditions by which they "need" to grind. Turbine never held a gun to peoples head and said "level 5 alts and then min/max them every level cap."

They took advantage of that yes, but the choice to grind and accommodate alts is 100% on the player.

You are of course absolutely correct, although I do not remember Turbine mentioning when I purchased alts, that they would render them impossible to progress later when they switch to horizontal grinding mechanisms. I've always managed to keep them reasonably up there until that point, but not anymore.

But, you are correct.

It will save me money in the long run - there will be no more purchasing of alts from me in the future, of that I am certain.

Most of my alts are above 65, with a couple at, or very close to level 50, and they can all progress to level cap comfortably using expansion content now. They have no "need" for non expac content any longer, because when they get to cap, they will never be able to catch up. As they will never progress beyond nothing more than just reaching cap, I needn't spend anything on them at any point at all. So with that in mind they have no use of Gondor/MT content either, which are the only regions that I actually get any use out of for my sub money at the moment. My two mains have done all that content - alts are now rendered as useless, so all that remains for me to do now is turn off my sub when it runs out in February.

Nice job Turbine. I don't mind subbing to support that game, while I can play my alts and progress them between updates after my mains have finished the most recent lot of grind, but when there is no reason to play them . . . . well, there is no reason for me to sub.

[Scirocco]

I think that's what most of us in this thread object to more than the actual grind itself.

Looking at what's needed, especially if I want to try to recreate the LIs I had at RoI (which was 2 per trait line with another pair for PvMP), that would take me an incredible amount of time because of the grind associated with the LIs. That's also not including any gear adjustments.

Without the group content, or even a chunk of landscape content that is challenging that doesn't get nerfed (like what happened to that one DA landscape raid area), there's next to no reason to actually do the grind. This ties into the problem with the Osgillaith instances being generally poorly designed, because lots of trash = boredom. It's more fun to do instances where the trash has been minimized, and you're hopping from miniboss to miniboss (like 2-3 minibosses/encounters before a final boss with light trash connecting each).

I think the Osg instances were intended to be the latter. There is not a lot of trash, compared to what I remember from older raids (what people might call more "classic"). Interestingly, I've heard complaints from some raiders about the fact that later raids, in effect, do not have enough of a build-up to the boss, and how they want the raids to be longer.

If were trying to re-create what you had at ROI with multiple LIs, I would have the same number of ILIs for the same purposes, but would put no more than 3 crystals and about 21 ASEs in each (i.e., roughly equivalent to amount of those resources you would have put into the LI versions). This would give you a set of ILIs that would be more powerful than the same set of LIs would have been at that level. In fact, you could just go with the free caps and not spend any resources at all, as a free-cap-only ILI is more powerful than the equivalent LI. (There may be an edge case or two, of course, where you'd want to keep an unimbued LI with certain legacies around for specific purposes.)

The only difference is that you wouldn't be able to say the ILIs were fully maxxed. But what would be better as a result of the same amount of grind: a set of fully maxxed LIs, or a set of more powerful ILIs but not fully maxxed?

I'm practical. I'd take the set of more powerful ILIs.