Feedback on Osiliath Instances being required to continue Epic

[willowrod]

Since the instances are required, they should be able to be solo-ed. As a VIP, please allow me to add my voice to the casual players who enjoy the lore and greatly admire the artists and devs for what my supergeek friends say is the most beautiful-looking game online. I play for enjoyment and for the story line. I don't need the ubergear. I appreciate the scaling because I don't need the adrenaline rush of a beating a super-hard instance. I play to unwind. I'm in a kin of more mature players who live in different time zones and are not always available at the same time. Most of the players I've met are nice and while I am willing to fellowship, I have no to wish to depend upon some of these rude and immature players who feel the need to sniff-out your gear before they approve of you. If players want more challenge I hope you can help them out; just don't make the instances a roadblock to continuing the story line. Here's some feedback from yesterday's play with my lvl 100 hunter; instances scaled to 50 for solo attempt:

Dome of the Stars: traps and tripwires had no effect. Trolls' morale were beefy but defeat-able with better strategy and (thank you 3x) morale bubble potion.

Sunken Labrynth: Some of my kin had trouble getting through the first gates. Last boss hardly took any damage; dispatched adds but didn't get close to beating the boss.

The Ruined City: Defeated Jukotor but lost twice to too many after-mobs. For solo play, suggest adds to final bosses stay dead (yeah, I know it's actually a 3-man). Third time on final boss, instance bugged after I killed alter spirit during boss' dialouge. Boss stopped in mid-sentence and I had to leave the instance and come back in. When I did, boss finished his speech as I ran back to the boss room and as soon as I opened the door and got in, he jumped on my case.

Suggest morale bubble potions last longer (not sure how I'll afford them when it goes live but they're sure fun now). As a musician and composer, I complement the music in Eastern Gondor. It is very good. Thank you for much more exciting themes when fighting enemies.

[Elemiire]

Since the instances are required, they should be able to be solo-ed. As a VIP, please allow me to add my voice to the casual players who enjoy the lore and greatly admire the artists and devs (...)

All good. I have an entirely different play style but I respect your choice of being more 'casual', whatever that means to you.

don't need the ubergear. I appreciate the scaling because I don't need the adrenaline rush of a beating a super-hard instance. I play to unwind. I'm in a kin of more mature players who live in different time zones and are not always available at the same time.

Hm, fair enough.

Most of the players I've met are nice and while I am willing to fellowship, I have no to wish to depend upon some of these rude and immature players who feel the need to sniff-out your gear before they approve of you. If players want more challenge I hope you can help them out; just don't make the instances a roadblock to continuing the story line. Here's some feedback from yesterday's play with my lvl 100 hunter

Aaaaaaand there goes my sympathy for you. I can almost hear the Whoosh!

It will not kill you to group just once to complete this. You don't want 'rude and immature players sniffing out your gear'? Then lead the run yourself and invite players that you see fit. If you scale it down to the lowest possible level, any half decent healer or any other class might be able to get you through the place, and you might even meet a nice person if you're not so closed-up to the idea that strangers could be nice and helpful.

People seem to immediately assume that everyone who is well-geared is a grade-A elitist idiot. How about you make your own group and give it a try? There is always the dismiss from fellowship option if you don't like the person.

instances scaled to 50 for solo attempt:

So you can't set it any lower? I honestly don't know. If you can, do it and you'll be able to solo it. If you can't, you really don't know a single person in the game who would want to help you? If that's so, that's your own fault. Time to visit more taverns and meet some people or something.

You seriously are not willing to ask /world or whatever equivalent channel for help just in the odd chance that you might get some unpleasant person? If that's the case, I have little sympathy for you and people like you who refuse to be flexible in some cases because they had a bad experience at some point.

Should the runs have a solo option like all the other epic-required content? Maybe. But until then, it won't kill you to try and work with the mechanics. I can respect your play style and I won't ridicule your gear, but just calling people out like that is what's creating this ridiculous division and making this game an exercise on isolation.

Edit: Also, this is still beta. Bugs are still running rampant and affect even the most hardcore, gear-sniffing of us.

[TKH]

I wonder if we can have a solo version of these instances, just like how they do with Waterwork and Mirror-hall. Gating epic after any kind of group content is a turn-off as the epic story has become solo-friendly for a long time. BBs, while labelling as group content, still have their solo/duo version, and the fact that players can afk through BBs still make it "solo-friendly" enough.

Sure, I can call out my kinmates or even helpful strangers to help me in those instances, but the fact that I have to depend on other players, wasting their gaming time (even if they volunteer), does not sound very casual to me.

[Faythefulle]

My kin demographic is also mostly an older group (40ish to 70+), mostly VIPs, and they are very much into relaxed play. They like to follow the stories that are so well done by MadeOfLions and they very much enjoy the beauty of Middle Earth in the game. I know they will enjoy eastern Gondor. Our kin also has people spread across the world's time zones so we don't often get to quest together, either. Most of them will solo or duo on a regular basis. None of them care for the 'moors and they are not raiders. Most have never even finished the epilogue on Bk 2 because of the required content in fellowships. They would prefer an option to solo/duo the epic, sort of like what was done for Weathertop. It isn't that they are unfriendly, but they have turned off world chat because, quite honestly, more often than not there is inappropriate or rude behavior on there. Most of them play the game to unwind, as well. They want to just kill some orcs and have fun blowing off the cobwebs of the day. Some of them are not considered great players; they make mistakes or don't know how to play their class well. Too many of them have been burned trying to fellow with some of the younger players and they are just not interested in spending their play time with that dynamic. I get what the OP is saying.

I have gone into the Osgiliath instances with my RK and with my Beorning. The beorning was able to hold her own. The poor RK...well, she would rather be a healer than a tank! I realize this is beta, but there is no way I was able to solo these 'level 50' instances with a squishy, light armour type.

In addition to going in solo, I took my RK in with a guardian and we made it thru Dome of Stars, but it was MUCH harder than a level 50 should have been. I don't know enough about the game mechanics to be able to tell when something was bugged/overpowered, but it was much harder than even going into an Isengard instance for the 2 of us. I took my beorning into the other 2 instances (SL & RC) with a champion and again, it was more than I expected from a level 50 instance. My partner & I have gone into Carn Dum and Urugarth many times with just the 2 of us from level 75 on up and have had no issues, so I am comparing my Osgiliath experiences to that.

I think that having the tier system is great for those that want more of the challenge in the instances. Nevertheless, the biggest issue here, to me, is the fact that the instances are tied to the epic and if someone cannot get thru it, the epic story comes to a screeching halt.

[Garatha]

Instances/group content should not be tied to the epics - it gates out folks, and that shouldn't happen. I know I had a heck of a time with finishing the epic on my characters in C. Gondor, having to finish Pelagir to finish the epic (and to gain that trait point). Some (the stronger classes) I had to solo, occasionally I had the assistance of the kindness of strangers. But if you aren't rank 5 or rank 6 in engineer, it's very hard to find someone that wants to do Big Battles with you. Instances I imagine will be the same thing - folks will be looking for well geared folks that know the fights, before I'm geared enough, and by then, they'll be only doing T2 or T2C. It's not that the folks that do them are wrong, they just want gear they can use, and so want to do the ones that drop the top gear and do them at the tier that drops it.

The second issue is folks well behind the curve. Finding someone that wants to run Tarlang's Crown now is pretty hard on the low population servers, or finishing the epics in HD. Group content is fun if you're at cap and are doing it when the mass of the population is just hitting it, but later, not so much. I imagine the hope is to push folks into grouping - but if you're on a low population server, or play outside of prime time on your server, it's an issue. I personally think loot would be a better driver to get folks to group, not forcing them into a group they can't even find, just to finish the story line.

Anyway, my 2 cents worth.

[Hallandil]

Instances/group content should not be tied to the epics - it gates out folks, and that shouldn't happen. I know I had a heck of a time with finishing the epic on my characters in C. Gondor, having to finish Pelagir to finish the epic (and to gain that trait point). Some (the stronger classes) I had to solo, occasionally I had the assistance of the kindness of strangers. But if you aren't rank 5 or rank 6 in engineer, it's very hard to find someone that wants to do Big Battles with you. Instances I imagine will be the same thing - folks will be looking for well geared folks that know the fights, before I'm geared enough, and by then, they'll be only doing T2 or T2C. It's not that the folks that do them are wrong, they just want gear they can use, and so want to do the ones that drop the top gear and do them at the tier that drops it.

The second issue is folks well behind the curve. Finding someone that wants to run Tarlang's Crown now is pretty hard on the low population servers, or finishing the epics in HD. Group content is fun if you're at cap and are doing it when the mass of the population is just hitting it, but later, not so much. I imagine the hope is to push folks into grouping - but if you're on a low population server, or play outside of prime time on your server, it's an issue. I personally think loot would be a better driver to get folks to group, not forcing them into a group they can't even find, just to finish the story line.

Anyway, my 2 cents worth.

Just to add my 3 cents to make a nickel.

Many argue that this was the original start of the "faceroll LOTRO", where back in "ye olde" times people were forced to raid (yes full 12) for the second volume. All of the Moria & Mirkwood skirmishes were once quest linked raids, similar to the volume I instances or the Tomb of Elendil six-man.
If they were to do it at all, it would end up being a universal "gate removal". That said, if they remove the epic here... they'd have to remove the BB requirements from Volume 3 and the Skirmishes from Volume 2.

One the note of problems getting a group, the true problem is with all this is the matter with servers. Yes, the curve was and still is an issue (it somewhat ate itself up around 2012 and has been dead since). "Elitists" refused to train new recruits, and new recruits refused to listen and learn, creating a cycle of server decay. I both love and hate the upcoming closures. Hundreds of us are stuck in a gaming Limbo at the moment...
On Riddermark there are players that want to group, but cant because they cannot find the players to fill the group. Tanks don't want to have to Tank, just solo, same with Healers... so filling a group becomes the true grind of the game.

[siipperi]

Strongly disagree with this one. Group up with people, make new friends. Back in SoA we didnt have any solo versio on epic book fellowship instances and everyone did them happily. Elitists and casual players in harmony and it was good. People dont bite as hard as you would think! We are approaching Mordor we cant survive anymore alone, it's time to keep together as one. Nothing breaks MY immersion more than killing thousands of orcs alone...

[Ruflus]

if the instances are required for epic completion then my sub will be cancelled.

[Thorwyn99]

Hmmm the instances are epic required and there is no solo version(Without any kind of loot for all I care) ? I thought we were past that.
Oh right they're scalable if they scale low enough and still count as completion I guess that counts as solomode.

[Nadrowen]

If soloers don't want to group at least once, the instances can be set to level 50 t1, which should be easy enough for decently geared/played level 100 character.

[Belechael]

If there is not a solo option for the epic storyline then it is totally unacceptable. Setting the level way lower than the suggested one is ok I guess, but ideally a single version like those we had in Gondor so far should be available.

This is again about options: You want to get a group and do them, that's totally fine. You want to solo them on rainy day that you feel like playing on your own, that should be fine as well.

Please, NO FORCE GROUPING!

PS. And no force soloing either, people who play in duos or groups should be taken into account as well.

[Thorwyn99]

If there is not a solo option for the epic storyline then it is totally unacceptable. Setting the level way lower than the suggested one is ok I guess, but ideally a single version like those we had in Gondor so far should be available.

This is again about options: You want to get a group and do them, that's totally fine. You want to solo them on rainy day that you feel like playing on your own, that should be fine as well.

Please, NO FORCE GROUPING!

PS. And no force soloing either, people who play in duos or groups should be taken into account as well.

Just thought about it again, the fact that you can scale them below your level works pretty well for that goal.

[Tarlywyn]

The Epic was made into the telling of a story that ALL could enjoy, both soloers and groupers and everyone in between. I understand that Turbine would want to justify making the new instances by getting players to use them. But attempting to force players to do them during the Epic? Really? How has that worked out with the Big Battles?

People that don't appreciate being herded into gameplay they don't want to do simply don't play or pay. I dear say this could reignite the soloer vs grouper wounds as well.

[Bragolos]

I think making the scalable version count as completion (is this officially confirmed??) is a very good solution to this whole problem. Every decent lvl 100 class can finish the 3-mans solo at lvl 50, and during this process everybody gets a taste of the instances and might get curious / try to group up while otherwise they would never look at these parts of the game.

To be consequent in this the 6-man should also be soloable, and that I guess will not work for the more squishy classes at scaled lvl 50. But it won't hurt anyone to ask a friendly cap, guard, warden or champ to guide him through this at lvl 50. Or better, apply for a serious group session at lvl 100 T1 which should not need an optimal grouping nor top-notch players.

[Gilean-EU]

Wow. I haven't reached the latest Epic questline to this point yet, but I am baffled. Forced grouping on Epic storyline is back again? Really?

Altough I have been playing since pre-launch, and lately my time spent in Middle-Earth has dramatically reduced (I cannot even remember last time I posted on forums), I am still waiting for the new landscape quests and Epics, and I have been testing them on Bullroarer, reporting bugs etc. But if they really have decied to put some group instances in Epic storyline - without solo option - there is no doubt: that will end my time with LOTRO. I don't care if I can set up instances to lvl 50 and fight grey mobs to get the quests done.

Having said that, I believe that they WILL add the solo way before this update goes live (if there is none yet), this cannot be intended. I cannot believe it.

[Hallandil]

Back onto this thread for the ultimate "idiot check" that could probably lead this entire thread astray.

To the OP - Was it the EPIC (i.e. Vol IV - Book III/IV) OR the "Ashes and Stars" quest-line?
If A&S.. that is NOT the Epics.
By popular demand and feedback given to MadeOfLions regarding previous instance clusters, people high recommended (including myself) that there be an included story arc that had its own quest chain. While this chain does have "chapter 1, 2 ,3 etc." it does not feature as part of the epic.. however it can contain major events (similarly to how Ost Dunhoth saw the official return of a certain lost member of the fellowship). This chain is not different from others in the game, like majority of the instance clusters in the game, it is associated with a specific part of the epic.
Great Barrows -> The aftermath of the hobbit's journey through there
Helegrod -> Following the revival of Thorog by Drugoth
Angmar (Carn Dum & Rift) -> The quest to thwart movements made by the Angmarim to prepare for war
Annuminas -> To hinder and weaken Angmar's hold on the ruined city
In their Absence -> The Vacuum left by the rangers that head south to seek Aragorn
etc. As with above, majority of the games' instance clusters reflect part of the Epics, but are still detached.

"But it IS the epic you say?" -> The why did my deed log mark book 3 as complete (no book 4, just the "future update") without having to do any of the instances?

...do not mean to come across as harsh or critical... just blunt. *drops into chair*

[Deorwyn]

As far as I'm aware, the Epic (Volume IV, Book 3 - Voices of the Past) ends with Chapter 8 - Gothmog Appears.

So no, you are not forced to group if you want to experience the new epic book.

(See also: http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Cate..._Book_3_Quests)

[Gilean-EU]

Thanks for the posts you two, I am still on chapter 7 but what you said sounds like expected. It's also good to know that the developers have not gone completely mad

[Kingault]

These instances aren't even part of the epic.
It's part of the instance cluster's quest chain, like all expac instance clusters had.
There's no reason to make solo-friendly versions since it's not in the epic, and you can just run it and level 50 if you insist.
Now, if it were part of the epic, solo versions would've been nice.
However, it's part of a quest chain meant for groups, not solo play.


Also, if you dislike people wanting you to be properly geared, not necessarily have the best gear, for your class/role, then run your own group. Or, if the inspectors were the type that wanted to see if you could actually perform your role adequately and you had bad/improper gear, then listen to them.
Regardless, the epic story is made to work with casuals.
The instance cluster is not in the epic.

[OldMadeOfLions]

Hey everybody, no cause for alarm -- the Osgiliath instance cluster is not part of the Epic Story, and you're not required to complete it in order to advance the Epic. I imagine you're probably confusing the chapters of 'Ashes and Stars' for the Epic, but it's a separate quest chain, much like 'In Their Absence.'

It's a credit to ThePinion if 'Ashes and Stars' feels like it's advancing the storyline, though!

MoL

[Faythefulle]

Hey everybody, no cause for alarm -- the Osgiliath instance cluster is not part of the Epic Story, and you're not required to complete it in order to advance the Epic. I imagine you're probably confusing the chapters of 'Ashes and Stars' for the Epic, but it's a separate quest chain, much like 'In Their Absence.'

It's a credit to ThePinion if 'Ashes and Stars' feels like it's advancing the storyline, though!

MoL

Thanks for the clarification! I feel much better now

Nevertheless, in its current incarnations, those instances are not soloable for a lvl 100 squishy...

[Tarlywyn]

Hey everybody, no cause for alarm -- the Osgiliath instance cluster is not part of the Epic Story, and you're not required to complete it in order to advance the Epic. I imagine you're probably confusing the chapters of 'Ashes and Stars' for the Epic, but it's a separate quest chain, much like 'In Their Absence.'

It's a credit to ThePinion if 'Ashes and Stars' feels like it's advancing the storyline, though!

MoL

Thanks for the clarification, and your work on the Epic. Feel suitably embarrassed responding to the misinformation above. Heard mainly good feedback for 'In Their Absence' from my former kinmates - they were already well into the story when I felt like giving it a go, so missed out. Hopefully 'Ashes and Stars' will have a similar response.

[Sullo]

Hey everybody, no cause for alarm -- the Osgiliath instance cluster is not part of the Epic Story, and you're not required to complete it in order to advance the Epic. I imagine you're probably confusing the chapters of 'Ashes and Stars' for the Epic, but it's a separate quest chain, much like 'In Their Absence.'

It's a credit to ThePinion if 'Ashes and Stars' feels like it's advancing the storyline, though!

MoL

Thank you! That is a relief.

[Garatha]

Thank you, kind sir.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Nevertheless, in its current incarnations, those instances are not soloable for a lvl 100 squishy...

I'm hoping that this was irony. Because the instances not being soloable for anyone is exactly how it should be.