Question to Orion about 1-20 progression changes?

[TesalionLortus]

In the stream you mentioned you want to take a look into 1-20 lvl progression because "it can be long" and reduce the amount of quests needed to speed up the process even further (or something along those lines?). So my immediate question that arises is this: you WON'T delete/get rid of any existing quests and storylines, right? Because the richness of your storytelling is like the biggest strength of the game so it would be worrisome to see you moving away from it, reducing old content and cheapening old regional tales by removing some of the quests/context... simply because some people are in a hurry?

If I understand it right the intention would be to make players EVEN LESS frustrated with back and forth between NPCs and hubs? Or something? And make levelling up even quicker? For players who tire going through all the storylines on alts, or are just starting out and don't pay much attention to stories? Makes me wonder what solution you may mean. Because if you don't mean reducing the number of quests (which I hope so, I guess MoL would try to stop you if this endeavor endangered the world building and chunks of pretty nice content?) then I can't imagine what possibly you can do aside from the increase of exp gains from each quest to speed things up. Only then - for everyone who actually wants to see all these little stories worth seeing - it would cause the overflow exp and thus even quicker outlevelling of zones so hmm, not ideal. Actually, this makes me think about the Additional Quests idea I posted (or something like it) which would be a nice middle ground because can provide quick, autobestowed activities "in the wild" in addition to usual storied ones from hubs (for those who want it), so there would be like these new, simpler, standalone quests that don't require lots of NPC interactions, don't compromise existing stories, can make levelling up look more like a journey than a hub chore and solve some different problems too + make it possible to play the game a bit more freely and less linearly (maybe they could reward more exp than these old quest chains too? to make it quicker for some folks?)

Anyway, would be cool if you were able to clarify a bit what kind of solution that might - possibly - be, maybe after weekend when you see this? Because idk, maybe I got you completely wrong when you talked about this. I guess I'm mostly just hoping nothing nice is being endangered here and you won't be doing any strange retcons/removal of good story content & characters! Hmm I feel like this world should be about journey in its beautiful open world - even if someone doesn't pay much attention to quest text - so yes, please, add free-roaming exp gains someday... but don't get rid of the storied quest chains because they're important part of the world many people would like to see or repeat... so that way we can have two interchangeable playstyles to progress through landscape and all could benefit then ; )

[Rylnconn]

In the stream you mentioned you want to take a look into 1-20 lvl progression because "it can be long" and reduce the amount of quests needed to speed up the process even further (or something along those lines?). So my immediate question that arises is this: you WON'T delete/get rid of any existing quests and storylines, right? Because the richness of your storytelling is like the biggest strength of the game so it would be worrisome to see you moving away from it, reducing old content and cheapening old regional tales by removing some of the quests/context... simply because some people are in a hurry?

If I understand it right the intention would be to make players EVEN LESS frustrated with back and forth between NPCs and hubs? Or something? And make levelling up even quicker? For players who tire going through all the storylines on alts, or are just starting out and don't pay much attention to stories? Makes me wonder what solution you may mean. Because if you don't mean reducing the number of quests (which I hope so, I guess MoL would try to stop you if this endeavor endangered the world building and chunks of pretty nice content?) then I can't imagine what possibly you can do aside from the increase of exp gains from each quest to speed things up. Only then - for everyone who actually wants to see all these little stories worth seeing - it would cause the overflow exp and thus even quicker outlevelling of zones so hmm, not ideal. Actually, this makes me think about the Additional Quests idea I posted (or something like it) which would be a nice middle ground because can provide quick, autobestowed activities "in the wild" in addition to usual storied ones from hubs (for those who want it), so there would be like these new, simpler, standalone quests that don't require lots of NPC interactions, don't compromise existing stories, can make levelling up look more like a journey than a hub chore and solve some different problems too + make it possible to play the game a bit more freely and less linearly (maybe they could reward more exp than these old quest chains too? to make it quicker for some folks?)

Anyway, would be cool if you were able to clarify a bit what kind of solution that might - possibly - be, maybe after weekend when you see this? Because idk, maybe I got you completely wrong when you talked about this. I guess I'm mostly just hoping nothing nice is being endangered here and you won't be doing any strange retcons/removal of good story content & characters! Hmm I feel like this world should be about journey in its beautiful open world - even if someone doesn't pay much attention to quest text - so yes, please, add free-roaming exp gains someday... but don't get rid of the storied quest chains because they're important part of the world many people would like to see or repeat... so that way we can have two interchangeable playstyles to progress through landscape and all could benefit then ; )

personnelly after running 50 plus toons thru the beginning instances .. I never thought once Jeez could we make this any faster .
Getting to level 20 takes very little time as is .
So I look at this as a " Beware of Greeks bearing gifts " scenario ..
But thats just me ..

[LagunaD2]

I never thought once Jeez could we make this any faster.

"50 plus toons" and you never met Sara Oakheart?

I call BS.

[CasualActual]

I feel like leveling through MT is much longer and more tedious than leveling 1-20.

[auximenes]

Yeah, 1-20 too fast? Not in my opinion. For old players it's not a big deal but for new players I think it's way too fast. They miss so much stuff and get directed off to Bree before the player can really get to know their starter area.

[TesalionLortus]

Yeah, 1-20 too fast? Not in my opinion. For old players it's not a big deal but for new players I think it's way too fast. They miss so much stuff and get directed off to Bree before the player can really get to know their starter area.

Yeah exactly. I guess maybe they're trying to make it super speedy for all these "what's this, I don't care, where group content?" new players to quickly get them to skirmishes/instances before they're discouraged (...and the delving system is coming) but butchering old content for players who actually care about landscape lore and stories isn't the way to do that, so I hope that's not how it goes.

I may be biased here because I wish for some free-roaming activities to play and progress through landscape, without hub-to-hub routine. But honestly, that could help, because this style of questing (running into things on landscape that provide exp points, not just NPC-tied stories) is more of a gaming standard these days in open-world games and potentially something new players would tolerate more before they get discouraged (also could help TREMENDOUSLY with grouping on landscape if paired with landscape difficulty options). Provide kind of a free-roaming framework to play the game without engaging with the storied chains, by including additional standalone landscape quests/content. So there are two ways to play on landscape. Take you time as usual and explore all the traditional stories, mostly unchanged as they were, so you gotta endure all the NPC shenanigans and requests, but this is the nature of the game's storytelling you can't erase that. Or complete all the additional activities you run into in the wild (including additional autobestowed content) to quickly level-up and move more freely towards Bree, untied to the Epics/regional arcs. Maybe then streamline how your players learn about skirmishes/instances/etc once they hit 20, maybe create some intro quests/vectors that would be neutral to both ways of playstyle, so it's all a bit more friendly than the current tooltips are?

Then you can have folks in a hurry levelling up faster (potentially in fellowship on landscape, all their friends pick up the same autobestowed quest, no confusion) and better directed towards instanced group activities they're interested in once they hit 20. You can have folks who care about story able to enjoy content as usual, and you can also have free-roamers/explorers able to free-roam through zones and with more quests in the wild to do. Oh, and yes, instance/mission exp grinders who level up that way, which is like the most boring way to enjoy this amazingly huge open-world game.

I've watched this YouTuber's video a week ago, and even through it wasn't a very serious attempt at playing LOTRO and mostly done for laughs... they were very quick to notice the nature of LOTRO's open world is SICK (as in amazing) and seemed to have A LOT of fun just strolling through the landscape towards their objective and visiting known locations. They weren't able to get to Mordor of course and got only as far as Rhovanion, but see, they were running though an empty landscape, without any autobestowals and exp gains opportunities, but maybe if there were some... they would actually level up along the way, got hooked and got much further? One might wonder... and they were the players who only launched it for fun and to make a video, imagine the effect on players who actually do intend to play the game if they're having such fun in it - except rn they can't because the amount of commitment and the need to explore everything in specific order and do all the quests to move between zones scares them.


So let the players decide how they want to progress but first you gotta open these landscape possibilities for them... and get away from the exclusively hub-to-hub flow of the progression (but without compromising the storytelling of the game). Now, that would be taking advantage of the open-world nature of the game.

[WeirdJedi]

I was quite surprised at the comment. I didn't think it took that long to get to level 20. I once spent three hours getting to level 15 on the legendary server, and that was with the experience penalty. Then again, I tend to see a lot of people confused and angry when they don't make it through the whole racial introduction and have to start over. Maybe that is where the problem lies. "Running around" isn't that bad when you have a 24-hour horse rental (real time) the moment you leave the introduction (or level 5 minimum) - that's outside all the run speed buffs available. The option to buy the riding skill or obtain a horse aren't cumbersome either. I think I spent like three weeks my first time through because there was just so much to see and explore. Look at how many systems become available by the time you get to level 20. If you were the type of person to immediate close any sort of tutorial pop-ups, you'd miss out on a ton of stuff about housing (level 15) and monster play.

[Valather89]

A few minor changes could be made to eastern Bree-land. Like, maybe getting sent to the Chetwood forest twice is enough, not three times (if you're doing the Epic Prologue) or even 4 (if you don't know the quest flow properly). Maybe change the place where you pick up the blackwort roots for the Greater Responsibility quest from the wolf den to somewhere next to Combe. Also, there's so much running in Staddle from one NPC to another that honestly could be trimmed down a little. It's funny in its own way, but it does almost make your head spin. Other than that, I think the rest is perfectly fine there.

Ered Luin is perfect too. The only thing I'd change is the quest chain with the gears to open the vault, so that you don't need to go back to Thorin's Halls every time.

As for the Shire... well that's a different beast. It's clearly the one that forces you to run around the most, but I do enjoy this zone being exactly like that. It's a "relic", it has its own quirky flavour and it's different from any other starting zone in the entire MMO landscape, and that's exactly the reason why I would leave it as it is.

Level 15-20 gap is very fast and dynamic too, with a good quest flow between Adso's, Buckland and the Old Forest, Andrath, Bree-fields, Barrow-Downs...

[TesalionLortus]

As for the Shire... well that's a different beast. It's clearly the one that forces you to run around the most, but I do enjoy this zone being exactly like that. It's a "relic", it has its own quirky flavour and it's different from any other starting zone in the entire MMO landscape, and that's exactly the reason why I would leave it as it is.

But that's the point I was trying to make. Trimming some of the content down - even outside the Shire - just because it makes you run around a little bit more = erasing some of the flavor/flow of the story. Not good. And if Orion talks about "speeding up" the 1-20 experience I doubt they mean very minor, unnoticeable changes that don't affect anything, because that wouldn't really "speed up" anything. So that's what makes me worried. What are their thoughts on this and how do they imagine it?

If they care about providing "less annoying" "less story-driven" "less back and forth" "less of being involved with NPCs and their dialogue" experiences for starter zones, then... adding new, simpler content in empty spaces that's easily auto-bestowed on landscape is a way to go. That way, don't need to change and trim anything (keep old stories intact) and in addition every bit of a free-roamer in me will be glad to be able to just run into landscape quests randomly on new alts, without the linear hub-to-hub NPC bother. There is a lot of space in the world and having more quests doesn't hurt. In ways that allow you to choose the type of activities you engage with, so either learning about NPCs and their struggles (classic NPC stories), or being more into landscape questing (old auto-bestowals - ...they're not many - and potential new ones that can be added in a lot of spaces).

[Neinda]

If that many people are unhappy with how long it takes to get to level 20, maybe offer a valar to level 20? Maybe offer a button in the character creation screen to auto level to 20 and skip the starter areas?

Is simplifying the starter areas and levels 1-20 more of a push to stop people from leveling characters in the starter areas to earn lotro points? That could also be solved without removing the story lines. No need to punish everyone for the exploits of a few. Those story lines are nice and fun and get one hooked on the game. In many ways they are the best part of this game. If lotro point farmers are the reason for this change, they will just move their farming activities elsewhere.

[TesalionLortus]

Is simplifying the starter areas and levels 1-20 more of.

The "simplifying" is a particularly jarring word here, if that's what Orion meant, because the game is an open-world game so it should be rich in available landscape activities (preferably additional open world activities ... because it currently doesn't have too many of these), not reduce the number of available activities and trying to streamline player movements through - oh the irony - its open world. In an open world game (and LOTRO is a very honest one, truly open without loading screens) players should be guided by Epic story and other longer quest chains (as well as lvl ranges of zones) but they should be able to choose their own path, ideally, if they wish so, and still run into standalone activities to level up.

[Hierona]

@Orion Think looking at later levels, like 50+, and try to speed those up is more in favour. The low levels go pretty fast already (maybe speed up Sara Oakheart tho), but when getting to lvl 40/50 the leveling proces becomes slowgoing and burns you out quickly.

[Rylnconn]

"50 plus toons" and you never met Sara Oakheart?

I call BS.

Sara has nothing to do with getting to level 20 ..


And your wrong ..

[LagunaD2]

Sara has nothing to do with getting to level 20 ..


And your wrong ..

You're wrong.

She's in the Amdir epic quest-line prologue. Level 10 quest:

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Que...e:_The_Hideout

[SSG_Orion]

I think what I said may have been misconstrued.

Modern games typically move you through the early levels more quickly. LotRO has several doldrum levels where a player sits for a long time. Honestly, the newbie experiences are wildly different in how they play too. For example, the time to kill a sickle-fly in the elf starting area is about 3 times longer than it is for a wolf in Archet. Class also plays a role in this timing too. We also don't do a great job of introducting skills that are necessary early enough to the player so a player in the earlier parts of the game might be diseased or poisoned with no method to remove that until a higher level.

These things can be frustrating for players and they are something that I hope we can alleviate.

No quests should be removed. Though, the sheer number of quests that a player in inundated with in Combe and Staddle is daunting and long before you are done there a number of the quests are grey and offer no true value to the player.

This is not to say that the experience is awful. It's just either a) overwhelming to a new player or b) seemingly like a slog to a new player depending on where you start. The dwarf starting experience is better and I would never want to adjust The Shire, because it is The Shire.

I just think we can make that nwe player experience a little better 1-20.

And then, yes, revisit 50-70.

[gildhur]

You're wrong.

She's in the Amdir epic quest-line prologue. Level 10 quest:

https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Que...e:_The_Hideout

She's also in the Ered Luin prologue. Level 12 quest, Assault on Rath Teraig.

[TesalionLortus]

Thanks, Orion! Could you indulge us with one more thing though?

So what you mean are other parts of the game experience including skills, how fast it takes to kill something etc., for example, not just the quests. So I don't need to worry about existing stories getting butchered. I get it now. But...

Though, the sheer number of quests that a player in inundated with in Combe and Staddle is daunting and long before you are done there a number of the quests are grey and offer no true value to the player.

This is not to say that the experience is awful. It's just either a) overwhelming to a new player or b) seemingly like a slog to a new player depending on where you start.

Between you saying something like this and Sev's comments about open-world nature of the game in the latest stream (which it seems like he missed the very core of what open-world gameplay means! since he immediately mentioned missions....), it makes me wonder... do you really view the higher number of quests as something to be considered "daunting" ? As if... every player wanted to play through all available quest chains? As if any surplus activities of different kinds were of "no value" ? As if choice of activities and directions for levelling up throughout the world was of "no value" ?

Think of something like Side Quests or Encounters from ESO. LOTRO is even bigger open world and actually more open (no teleports!) but it has deficit of such landscape activities. Which hinders its attractiveness as an open-world experience.

Just don't get it and seems like others in this thread don't either, many would welcome more new landscape activities and more choices throughout the existing landscape (both group and solo), not just missions. Unless LOTRO is like something super unique with its player base, with something like 70% of its newcomers dedicated from the get go to do every single quest they run into so the increase in total number of quests would frustrate them to the point where you're loosing them... which I doubt they are dedicated to get through all the quests in the game... so it doesn't appear like it would be of "no value" to have more landscape activities in different styles to alleviate the linearity problem that this growing world of Middle-earth has right now, no? Because wink wink open-world needs activities of different kinds rewarding exp and in abundance to offer a meaningful choice and to increase its replayability all across the board (whereas adding a new low lvl region, while cool in terms of landmass and bigger lore stories to be explored, works basically the same as any other already existing region... with richly narratively driven content that's not exactly very replayable and free-roaming friendly, so doesn't really help with the linearity problem overall)

Not saying "do it now! add more of such standalone landscape activities!" because right now there might be other priorities and other important things to do, but... just trying to understand your motivations here and what's actually your POV/worry? Why there would be "no value" ? Why worry about people out-levelling things? (mentioned by Sev) Whereas, they can just choose NOT to do all the quests? Probably they're already choosing to ignore some grey ones where possible, considering the total amount and the fact not every game player is a story geek! Some just choose activities they enjoy and discard the others or the ones they out-levelled. And parties interested in on-level experience are already using the tortoise so no real problem for them either! So not getting it, really sounds like something you shouldn't worry about at all, and try to spice up the kinds of available activities (someday), because could really refresh the game and allow for more game styles - and these other mmos are certainly doing it.

So... just trying to understand your approach to this because can't get my head around it and Sev's answer didn't help ; )

[SSG_Orion]

Between you saying something like this and Sev's comments about open-world nature of the game in the latest stream (which it seems like he missed the very core of what open-world gameplay means! since he immediately mentioned missions....), it makes me wonder... do you really view the higher number of quests as something to be considered "daunting" ? As if... every player wanted to play through all available quest chains? As if any surplus activities of different kinds were of "no value" ? As if choice of activities and directions for levelling up throughout the world was of "no value" ?

The "no value" statement is not meant that there is no value to the content - just that the grey quests don't offer the experience, treausre, arnd coin that quests that are considered on level provide.

It has nothing to do with the amount of content and more the flow of the levelling curve at those points. Those quests that go grey have an experience tied to them, but are often trivial in difficulty and reward. Should have used that phrasing so that it was more clear.

[Arveduie]

Honestly, the newbie experiences are wildly different in how they play too. For example, the time to kill a sickle-fly in the elf starting area is about 3 times longer than it is for a wolf in Archet. Class also plays a role in this timing too.

Orion, while you're looking at the low level experience, would it be possible for some form of stop-gap item to be put in place to mitigate the absence of tactical damage rating and tactical heal rating for classes with tactical skills prior to the first legendary item at level 45 (or 50 if done at level)? The low level and even mid level experience is considerably more time consuming on rk, minstrel, and lm. Then upon hitting 45 and simply equipping a legendary weapon, you'll see most skills suddenly double in damage

If you haven't done so yet, taking Brawler through a starter zone and then running through that same zone on rune-keeper provides an incredibly stark contrast in play experience and speed. It takes RK nearly 30s simply to phase Talagan Silvertongue during the intro spar, just as an example.

Veteran players will just Aria slower leveling alts, but the scaling problem is likely to be a major impediment when it comes to retaining players getting their first taste of Lotro.

[DancesInTrees]

... I would never want to adjust The Shire, because it is The Shire....

Good.

1234567890

[TesalionLortus]

It's clear now, thanks Orion. Although I can't help but notice you guys really avoid commenting on the "open-world merits" and player wishes for more standalone landscape activities throughout the world (and the fact instanced missions don't seem to be an answer). Well, I just hope you give it more thought and love someday.

Those quests that go grey have an experience tied to them, but are often trivial in difficulty and reward. Should have used that phrasing so that it was more clear.

Hmm, that part may change somehow with landscape difficulty at least, so maybe they could become less trivial. Although it's not ideal considering you gotta travel to NPC to switch. Any possibility that it can be done under the settings someday to adjust landscape difficulty on the fly? Since landscape difficulty seems to use a quest mechanic - I guess it would require injecting a bestowing NPC into our UI someplace to be able to interact with it on the fly? If that's feasible not a bad idea

[SSG_Orion]

It's clear now, thanks Orion. Although I can't help but notice you guys really avoid commenting on the "open-world merits" and player wishes for more standalone landscape activities throughout the world (and the fact instanced missions don't seem to be an answer). Well, I just hope you give it more thought and love someday.

Hmm, that part may change somehow with landscape difficulty at least, so maybe they could become less trivial. Although it's not ideal considering you gotta travel to NPC to switch. Any possibility that it can be done under the settings someday to adjust landscape difficulty on the fly? Since landscape difficulty seems to use a quest mechanic - I guess it would require injecting a bestowing NPC into our UI someplace to be able to interact with it on the fly? If that's feasible not a bad idea

It's a careful dance we have to do. On the one hand, more "public-style" quests might be enjoyed by a portion of the community - and frankly it might be a large portion of the community - but we need to make certain that the issues raised by putting that style of quest on landscape does not detrimnetally affect the game play of others. Suffice it to say, adding quests of this nature is costly to the server and until we address the elephant in the room it is unlikely that we would introduce a good number of this style of quest.

On another note, shifting difficulty on landscape would not affect the level or rewards from quests. Most of those are static.

[TesalionLortus]

It's a careful dance we have to do. On the one hand, more "public-style" quests might be enjoyed by a portion of the community - and frankly it might be a large portion of the community - but we need to make certain that the issues raised by putting that style of quest on landscape does not detrimnetally affect the game play of others. Suffice it to say, adding quests of this nature is costly to the server and until we address the elephant in the room it is unlikely that we would introduce a good number of this style of quest.

Oh wait, so what you're saying is "auto-bestowed" types of quests (or larger number of quests available in the region) can affect the server? That would explain a lot, sounds like it's the same type of problem that you guys mentioned you have with deeds and how it's affecting lag

On another note, shifting difficulty on landscape would not affect the level or rewards from quests. Most of those are static.

True, but certainly could help with experience, if someone doesn't want it too easy while exploring the content.

[Xerxes2007]

When I enter in a destination to get to on my smart phone, the app provides with some route options. There's the quickest route, and usually one or two others that may be longer but might offer a better view or through a certain town I want to get to etc.

That's what I want when I'm on the character creation panel - route options - The full experience, the quickest way to 140, and something in the middle. And the the game adjusts the number of quests and xp along the route to get me to wherever I want to go. And it would be nice to have touch points along the way where I could potentially readjust my route if I wish to. Like "Middle Earth Guide" npcs in certain cities that bring up the interface I encountered at the character creation panel to adjust my route option. Like I hate Rohan so I'm going to go "quickest" but I love mordor so I'm taking the full option. Maybe the adjustment is for mithril or LP or something.

[TesalionLortus]

When I enter in a destination to get to on my smart phone, the app provides with some route options. There's the quickest route, and usually one or two others that may be longer but might offer a better view or through a certain town I want to get to etc.

That's what I want when I'm on the character creation panel - route options - The full experience, the quickest way to 140, and something in the middle. And the the game adjusts the number of quests and xp along the route to get me to wherever I want to go. And it would be nice to have touch points along the way where I could potentially readjust my route if I wish to. Like "Middle Earth Guide" npcs in certain cities that bring up the interface I encountered at the character creation panel to adjust my route option. Like I hate Rohan so I'm going to go "quickest" but I love mordor so I'm taking the full option. Maybe the adjustment is for mithril or LP or something.

I use Google for my buses too but this sounds a bit far-fetched for an MMO and gaming : D Most players wouldn't find use for it anyway, they don't just play the game to be on "the quickest route" - whatever that means (per individual basis), this would require a pretty advanced algorithm. LOL.