LotRos biggest current issues: Itemization, Performance, not listening

[Oelle]

LotRo is and always was a nice game for players that like its story. And to a certain degree, it gave raiders nice content, too.
However, with time moving on, some issues get harder.

As I see it, currently, the worst parts of lotro are itemization, performance and the lack of reaction to playersuggestions.
In detail:

Itemization:
-The System of imbued legendary items is a complete mess for anyone that is not at the maximum potential at any time. Catching up is litterally impossible and even though players asked for a chance since years, there is still no change, just the "announcement" of a likely rework another year in the future.
-The distribution of stats and the mainstat rework made mainstats on any endgame items ridiculously weak. Therefore, the balance of stats on any highlevel items is totally flawed. This has been reported several times and to my knowledge not even been aknowledged by the DEVs. As a result, itemization is heavily dependant on essences again, because non-essence-items are simply bad.

Performance has been an ongoing issue for lotro since Rohan. For a game as old as lotro, simply running around in the landscape should not lead to rubberbanding, lagging, hitches or disconnects, still it does so regularly for many players. A mmo must run smoothly on most machines, not just on certain setups of a few lucky players.

Players made lots of good suggestions to reduce the issues with itemization or other problems, but the only real reaction we get is whenever it comes to class-balance-rework and discussions with Vastin. Other than that, the only reactions we get are "yea, we know, we work on it (since ever)", but mostly nothing. There isn't even any reaction, if players ask to fix bugs themselves, for free, which could easily be done with localization issues. Thats sad.



As a result of the aforementioned issues, in those rare moments when I can still motivate myself for playing, I see less and less players in my kinship and generally in the game. Going on like this wont be good for the game. Please, SSG, change your path and do something. Or just finally declare lotro as "in maintenance" officially.

[OldMadeOfLions]

There isn't even any reaction, if players ask to fix bugs themselves, for free, which could easily be done with localization issues. Thats sad.

Handing access to the game files to players so they can fix localization bugs themselves isn't the kind of thing we're able to do. So "easily done" is something of a mischaracterization; using the bug-reporting system remains the best way to get these issues fixed.

MoL

[Oelle]

Handing access to the game files to players so they can fix localization bugs themselves isn't the kind of thing we're able to do. So "easily done" is something of a mischaracterization; using the bug-reporting system remains the best way to get these issues fixed.

MoL

Well... you wouldn't have to hand out the game files. An internal BOT could fix the loca issues with input from players like "text with issues"/"fixed text", if that BOT then searches through your database for that "text with issues" and replaces it with "fixed text", maybe with a step inbetween where others can have a look on potential fixes. Your bug-reporting system obviously is NOT a viable way to get issues fixed, otherwise there would not be years old typos in the game after they have been reported numerous times.
I once gave a list of ~100 text issues to the DEV team and they even took the time to look at my list and aknowledge, that all those were bugs. Still, more than a year later, they are all still present.
If thats the best you can do, thats sad.
Still, thanks for the reaction to the least important issue of the mentioned issues for many people, as it isn't the least important issue for me, personally. I already tried switching clients to different languages to get less annoyed by typos (which didn't really help) and may likely quit lotro one day because of a combination of mentioned issues.

Or you could offer an internship for players that want to fix those issues. With NDA or any other sort of contract and internally in your studio. Some might even do it unpaid in their holidays. Nothing wrong with making some holidays in NA and making them a week longer to fix annoying typos. If there had been any positive reaction in this way, I'd seriously have thought about doing that and stopped argueing.

Oh, and sorry that I forgot to mention you. You are the other DEV that reacts quite often, if Lore discussions come up. But we need more reactions from system people, and not only after (often bad) changes got implemented. For example the change "mainstats only give 2 instead of 8 mastery" was an obvious problem for itemization, that could easily be fine, if other things were changed, too (formulas and statnumbers on essences). But it came alone and as that is a total mess. Any player could have told whoever DEV did that change at the first stage before implementation, that this change alone will have issues.

[Olebenny]

As I see it, currently, the worst parts of lotro are itemization, performance and the lack of reaction to playersuggestions.

Players made lots of good suggestions to reduce the issues with itemization or other problems, but the only real reaction we get is whenever it comes to class-balance-rework and discussions with Vastin. Other than that, the only reactions we get are "yea, we know, we work on it (since ever)", but mostly nothing.

I agree with you on LIs being a huge issue and some other points but as cord and many devs have posted many times, feedback/forums are read very often by all devs and its simply a choice to respond or not. You see Vastin reply a lot because his work very directly impacts players and the game, literally changing how the core of your gameplay functions by changing your class, the first thing you do when you enter lotro is choose your character/class to play and that decision dictates what you are about to do and how you do it. I love seeing his involvement with the community.

MoL and Scenario also seem very active when threads related to their work pop up, answering questions or leaving fun little comments. Less feedback on quests and landscape seems to be the case mostly outside of bugs since its what those 2 devs do the most and do well. Not saying vastin does a bad job at all, but he has many other factors to take in for class work that we cant possibly expect him to have all answers for since its impossible IMO to master all 10 classes and know their meta status in all aspects of the game.

When Anvil got released it was followed by many tweaks and bug/exploit fixing, the raid devs were following feedback and IMO the raid is in a really nice spot now after all of it. Sure it took a hot second but it got there.

Cant expect to see a dev comment on literally everything especially when you reach matters that are outside of dev decision making. Sure fixing the LI grind is simple and more than likely most devs could do it in one day. Slap up some barters, reduce some prices badabing badaboom. But someone is making the call to not do it that probably isnt MoL or Scenario or Cord etc etc. Many times in the past a response has been given along the lines of "we read your feedback and we are considering it" with an explanation that that is all they can say at the time and just get critiqued for it. I personally would love to know why the LI grind isnt being addressed but if Cord was greenlit to tell us "we are looking into the situation" people would just start slamming him for a neutral response when no real response can be given either way.

If someone makes a great suggestion about class x and vastin reads it and goes "hey thats a great idea but i have several months of other class work left to do before i could even do that" what would you want him to reply? "Hey great idea, ill maybe do it if i remember after this mountain of other work i have to do"? Seems a bit unreasonable of an expectation

If every issue in the game could be worked on then im sure it would, but the dev team isnt overly large and there are very large projects like the 64bit client and Vales currently being worked on that draw many dev hours. And i may be wrong on this but what gets worked on isnt normally the decision of the blue names on the forums, there are other factors from other people. Lotro still needs to make money in the end to keep going.

All that said, as i have said so many times on the forums, i do hope the LI issue is worked on sooner than the revamp is projected and each week i will support the idea of change to it on the forums. Keep raising the problem and let those that decide whether it gets fixed or not know we wont be silent on the matter.

[Curioser]

Well... you wouldn't have to hand out the game files. An internal BOT could fix the loca issues with input from players like "text with issues"/"fixed text", if that BOT then searches through your database for that "text with issues" and replaces it with "fixed text", maybe with a step inbetween where others can have a look on potential fixes. Your bug-reporting system obviously is NOT a viable way to get issues fixed, otherwise there would not be years old typos in the game after they have been reported numerous times.
I once gave a list of ~issues to the DEV team and they even took the time to look at my list and aknowledge, that all those were bugs. Still, more than a year later, they are all still present.
If thats the best you can do, thats sad.
Still, thanks for the reaction to the least important issue of the mentioned issues for many people, as it isnt the least important issue for me, personally. I already tried switching clients to different languages to get less annoyed by typos (which didn't really help) and may likely quit lotro one day because of a combination of mentioned issues.

Yes and no @ topic title.
I'm sure some of that will be a priority as the game makes the new whatstheword client. Not as if we needed that either, had the bits after 86 been made to fit in with the rest of the game. Without that, there might have been some time over for other things.
Anyhows. Hundreds of scrolls of empowerment is my biggest issue, followed by the recent class adjustments to make me use more soes. Maybe after the lootboxing though, that really takes the cake. Just after I added a sub 3 months to one account, I learn that the lootbox loot rewards are somehow varying in item levels (and that the mithril coin mailing of store stuff restarted in the leg servers - happy to say that's gone faster than you can say bot armies). It's what makes me angry. I get a feeling maybe I should load the game and then I recall that I've been let down so severely.

[Thodorin]

Handing access to the game files to players so they can fix localization bugs themselves isn't the kind of thing we're able to do. So "easily done" is something of a mischaracterization;

I agree.

...using the bug-reporting system remains the best way to get these issues fixed.

MoL

Unfortunately, it is the only way instead of the best way.


SSG does not motivate players to write bugreports for localization errors, because you as a player do not feel that they are being successfully resolved. Even simple spelling errors are not resolved after several months. Sometimes I have the feeling that bug fixes only come with the big updates - and between those can be more than 6 months.

It is especially bad if the texts are incorrectly assigned and for example you should collecting grapevines - but in truth Kundolar would have to hunt.

It is a pity that due to the lack of time often texts are not finished translated. For example, at the beautiful new series of quest for the Spring Festival suddenly appear partially English texts in the German client.

[maartena]

Or just finally declare lotro as "in maintenance" officially.

No matter how many times people mention that Lotro is in "maintenance mode" or should be in "maintenance mode", there is no evidence to suggest it will be for a long, long time. This year (and the beginnings of next year) have already been carved out, and we will see a major update coming in summer, and an actual expansion coming in the fall. Lotro is in active development, and will continue to be in active development for probably many years to come.

The fact they aren't fixing certain things, doesn't mean they aren't working on other things and it doesn't mean they aren't aware of it. They only have so many developers, and they do have a legal right to certain amounts of sleep.

[maartena]

Handing access to the game files to players so they can fix localization bugs themselves isn't the kind of thing we're able to do. So "easily done" is something of a mischaracterization; using the bug-reporting system remains the best way to get these issues fixed.

MoL

While I totally agree with NOT handing access to game files to players, and I understand the reason why..... the current bug system and ticket system should really be looked at. What would be nice is a wiki-esque site that lists reported bugs, whether they have been found not reproducible or verified (mark red), whether they have been acknowledged/found/verified but not fixed (mark orange), whether they have been accepted into the workflow of the developers (mark blue), and whether they have been fixed and are ready to be released to bullroarer or live (mark green).

Of course SSG doesn't owe anyone anything, and there are THOUSANDS of bugs making a system like that a bit hard to maintain.... but to get you an idea, Microsoft is using something very similar for their Edge browser: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-u...atform/status/

Might I make a suggestion?

Create a forum for bug reporting. Once a bug is submitted in the forum it is open for discussion and other players experiencing the same bug can then add their comments as well. A status color on the topic level or OP of the bug post can indicate (as listed above) what the status is of the bug. A community effort is often a better approach.... many people don't make single bug reports because they don't find them annoying, or forget about it..... but a "hey, this happened to me too!" comment might be helpful for the developers, if of course it contains relevant info.

Furthermore, re-open bug submission from within the game completely. If we are stuck somewhere, or looking at something somewhere.... we really should have the option to click "report a bug", and it will fill in all information it already knows (such as exact location, level of character, equipment worn, race, class, exact time of day both IRL and on server (e.g. day, night, etc), whether it was a location inside an instance or in the field, what quests are active, etc, etc.....this was an option in game at some point with /bug, but it was removed for some reason. This is also ideal for translation issues, if you have a dialog box open with a translation error or spelling error, you can do a /bug and it may include the text in the open dialog box.

It seems to me bug reporting WAS a lot better in the past. I don't know if this is because of staff reduction over the years, and having to do more with less.... but bug reporting can certainly be improved upon.

[Thodorin]

... using the bug-reporting system remains the best way to get these issues fixed.

MoL

What should be mentioned on the subject of localization: During the revision of the bug report system, the "localization problem" reporting option was removed. There is no longer a meaningful selection point. It must be reported under "other". A reintroduction of an appropriate selection option would be very helpful.

[Elmagor]

imbued legendary item must have better and more detailed guide. As example, I know player who imbue LI after it reach 1st level. He ends up with 1 legacy and forced to spend huge amount of gold to make another LI, or spend even more huge amount of gold to add 6 other legacy. I sure developers don't enjoy such situations, it's not something what we really want to see.

Same for Epic Battles. They must be real fun feature, and I think it's best what they can do when they try to show us big war between Rohan/Gondor & Mordor. But it ends up like mess with so many bugs, glitches and just eat too much time. And people forced to do them, because they need farm scrolls/crystals, or because they need trait points. Instead of balancing some gear what not many players use, they need fix something what have more impact to players.

[Maclorien]

Is it a bug? Is it intended? Is it on the list? Is it just a mistake? Has it been reviewed and dismissed? How many hundreds have already bugged this? If my bug is so off the beaten path will anyone else bug it and get the necessary momentum for a fix? Do I trust the fix won't break something else given the lack of code/game knowledge now? PMs are not replied to, do they care? There's so much missing from every level cap increase I have to think it's intended and if the devs e.c.t. still play it's all so obvious they'll have spotted it anyway, wouldn't they? If it's a bug that's been in game years, who's going to bother with it now? Do I want to add to the bugs list with an issue that has easy workarounds? It didn't get fixed on BR why bug it again?

If I bugged all the issues it would take up years of dev/engineer time and months of mine.

It is getting to the point it'll be more interesting filing a bug report than continuing the grind.

[Daniyel]

To Elmagor -

About what you said about ILI System:
There have been numerous guides about it. one of the best ones (though dated) is here

http://dadislotroguides.com/dadis-guide-to-imbuing/

Furthermore, anyone who is imbuing is likely going to be at level 100 or higher. In that time, if they are still not in any kinship or have not made a single buddy/friend on the server, it is highly unlikely. My recruits and kinsmen are always encouraged to ask questions or for help, and we have links like the above in our kin's discord server for all to access.
Not to mention, on my Server crickhollow, it is replicated in the discord server for Crickhollow itself.

To everyone else in this thread -

I have faith there is much more going on behind the scenes than we as players know. Trust that people getting paid to do work are competent enough to do the work and are doing it as best and quickly as they can. I too would be happier if SSG would take a breath between content updates and just make updates that fix issues/bugs/whatnot. but that's not how the business works, and there's no game that does that. the show must go on!

To the OP, Oelle --

About the ILI. the grind is crazy. Throne of the dread terror is the only salvation.
There have been talks about releasing a new aria-of-valar-type package to deliver more Scrolls/Crystals.

essences issue - essences have been a core part of the game since their introduction in 2014.
nothing's really changes since how it was back in gondor, all those items with 3-slot jewlery and 4-slot armour are still available.

You're right - non-essence-items are simply bad. like to the point of will classes choosing slotted agility pieces for stat gain over will pieces xD (Both slotted)

performance - Lotro has confirmed a 64-bit client is coming for years. But recently, it's been mentioned on public streams and interviews, with EP Severlin using the timeframe of "Weeks" not "Months" so it's almost there! it won't fix everything, but it fixes a LOT!!

[Elmagor]

To Elmagor -

About what you said about ILI System:
There have been numerous guides about it. one of the best ones (though dated) is here

http://dadislotroguides.com/dadis-guide-to-imbuing/

Furthermore, anyone who is imbuing is likely going to be at level 100 or higher. In that time, if they are still not in any kinship or have not made a single buddy/friend on the server, it is highly unlikely. My recruits and kinsmen are always encouraged to ask questions or for help, and we have links like the above in our kin's discord server for all to access.
Not to mention, on my Server crickhollow, it is replicated in the discord server for Crickhollow itself.

Sych complicated system must have good ingame guide. You don't need ask friends, kinmates, or find guides in internet if developers work harder.

[TheHylianLink98]

Something that has been on my mind recently is that a huge problem with MMO development for some of these older games is that early on decisions are made that are set in stone without player input. This absolutely needs to change. WoW has this issue too. They lost over 50% of their player base this year because of the mess that is BFA.

For Lotro, Palantir shouldn't exist. Bullroarer should be open most, if not all of the time. When new plans to add or change something it really should be discussed openly on the Bullroarer forums. Players should have access to the roadmap and details long before development starts on something. This game is almost 12 years old, sorry no new bedazzling features are drawing in players or keeping the current niche market you have. Right now, we are handed tools and systems we never asked for or wanted. The game is bogged down and a mess because of this. Playing through the legendary server, the biggest question I ask myself is why did some of this need changed? A lot of the new stuff serves absolutely no purpose other than to lengthen the grind, when Lotro always had a rock solid game underneath of the current mess.

Yeah, you'll have to deal with very loud ones by moving to a more open development with the community. But a lot of players know and understand this game way better than the development team does. A lot of players know what makes this game really fun. Players need to be involved with development from day 1. Not a select small group for Palantir, a few days on Bullroarer and finally a beta on live. You're just pissing off your players.

We also need more interaction from managment and the producers/directors. It blows me away Severlin only talks to the community once a year and it comes off as drastically out of touch and trying to hype up stuff we don't want or care about. He and others higher up should be actively engaging the community every week and finding out what the player base actually wants. And we need an additional community manager, one that better understand MMO's and one that better understands Lotro.

[welden]

Such complicated system must have good ingame guide. You don't need ask friends, kinmates, or find guides in internet if developers work harder.

I agree with you Elmagor, the current ILI system of advancement is extremely complicated. Dadi's guides are helpful but just how people actually use them before they have alrdy given up on the game???

I don't even bother with imbuing my LIs as the LI grind has become soooo time consuming that it mostly discourages my game play rather than encouraging it.

Kind of out of protest for the whole LI system debacle I have mostly avoided having anything to do with it. I only use LIs for decon now. I use the best non-LIs I can either find or craft for my gear. I only slot LIs to decon later for relics and runes in hopes that someday I will want to use them?

Which, I hope will not be in vain...

Welden

[WhiteWolf21x]

The problem with Lotro is that a majority of the games issues where caused by decisions made 5-10 years ago. The time to fix those problems was years ago and there really isn't much ssg can do. People like to blame SSG for the current state of the game which in my opinion is silly. They inherited a broken game and there is no way to truly fix it unless some generous soul would buy the company and hire 100 developers. And even then that might not work.

Something that has been on my mind recently is that a huge problem with MMO development for some of these older games is that early on decisions are made that are set in stone without player input. This absolutely needs to change. WoW has this issue too. They lost over 50% of their player base this year because of the mess that is BFA.

Decisions are made months in advance though. There is a pretty good chance most of the Lotro team is working on Minas Morgul and we haven't even seen Vales yet. Most of Blizzard is probably working on the next expansion and they haven't launched 8.2 or 8.3. Details about these things change weekly, or even daily. Its happened to Lotro the past two years with SSG pushing Minas Morgul back twice in favor of more development time and to explore the Northern Realms.

The overall problem with MMO development is content consumption. Because an MMO is running 24/7, you essentially need players playing (and paying) 24/7 to justify the costs. So you create content (quests, instances, raids, pvp etc) that players complete. However players complete content faster than it can be made. So devs create the grind, raid locks, low drop rates, dailies etc. So now players must play consistently over extended periods to reach their goals. During the 2000s this was fine. The grind wasn't too bad and MMO's peaked.

But then players got better. They started finding Meta's to get BiS as fast as possible. Beta's were datamined so that all secrets were revealed before release. Guides were created on day 1 so players could do all the content quicker. Infrastructure got better so connections improved. Voice chat improved so raid teams were able to preform better. Player ability has improved so drastically over the past 10 years that it is no longer possible to create enough content to keep players playing 24/7.

So now devs are stuck. Their options are:

- Option A: Make the grind so tedious in order to keep players playing. Hardcore players push through (because that's what they do) but casual players quit because its too much.

- Option B: Make the grind lenient. Hardcore players complete the grind quickly, complain about lack of things to do then leave to play other games. Casual players eventually make their through the grind, but then have no one to compare their characters too, since all the hardcore players left.

- Option C: Release content periodically throughout the year so players never run out of things to do. The only MMO that is capable of this is World of Warcraft. Yeah they lost a large amount of players the last few months, but it wasn't due to the lack of content. Since BFA released, WoW has added hundreds of quests, 10 dungeons, 2 raids (with a 3rd on the way) dozens of collectibles to track down as well as several other forms of content. And in a few months another content update will release with even more quests, a raid and other content.
To compare, in that same time frame, Lotro added 1 small content update with 100 quests, 3 dungeons, a small raid and a 3 man survival instance.

The best option is Option C, but like I said, only powerhouse companies can make content that fast. And even then there is still development issues.

The second issue with MMO design is consistent playing. Simply put, part of your player base will play consistently for months/years at a time while the other part will come and go when they please. Eventually this becomes a problem as long term players will eventually have an insurmountable advantage over the newer/short term players. So in order to close the gap, you create catch up mechanics, level cap increase and reset gear. This tends to upset longer term players since all of their hard work was made useless almost instantly.

The third issue with MMO design has to do with mechanics and game systems. Some players tend to get bored with systems over time. Take classes for example. Some players feel that classes should change every expansion. Some skills should be added and other removed to change the feel of the class. The overall class philosophy doesn't change, but the rotation and useful skills do change. The problem with this is that it makes class balance a never ending project.

This is also the reason why systems are added to the game. If nothing changes over 10 years other than level cap and gear, players will eventually get bored. So you add systems like LI's in Lotro or Artifact Weapons in WoW. Something that makes playing fresh.

For Lotro, Palantir shouldn't exist. Bullroarer should be open most, if not all of the time. When new plans to add or change something it really should be discussed openly on the Bullroarer forums.

In its current form, Palantir shouldn't exist. If SSG had more funds then maybe Palantir could become more of an internal testing team, much like how WoW hired a bunch of former hardcore raiders to test their raids for them. However I also think Palantir has little to no effect on development.

I agree Bullroarer should be open longer. Maybe leave it open year round for ViP's (to ensure not everyone runs around on bullroarer exclusively) then during big tests open BR for everyone and leave it up for 2 weeks at a time instead of 2 days.

This game is almost 12 years old, sorry no new bedazzling features are drawing in players or keeping the current niche market you have. Right now, we are handed tools and systems we never asked for or wanted. The game is bogged down and a mess because of this. Playing through the legendary server, the biggest question I ask myself is why did some of this need changed? A lot of the new stuff serves absolutely no purpose other than to lengthen the grind, when Lotro always had a rock solid game underneath of the current mess.

What you're seeing on the Legendary Server is the fact that Lotro has never had a focused plan. If you go back through and look at all the releases you can easily tell that there was no long term plan in place, no fundamental philosophy to build around. Its probably the main reason the game is in the place its in.

Lotro's Niche is Tolkien. It will never shut down because of this. It may reduce to 2 servers and go into maintenance mode. But there will always be that Tolkien loving player group keeping a server or two alive.

Yeah, you'll have to deal with very loud ones by moving to a more open development with the community. But a lot of players know and understand this game way better than the development team does. A lot of players know what makes this game really fun. Players need to be involved with development from day 1. Not a select small group for Palantir, a few days on Bullroarer and finally a beta on live. You're just pissing off your players.

I disagree that we know more about the game than the dev team does. There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes that we don't know about.

And of course we know what makes the game fun, but that doesn't guarantee a successful game. Heck, a lot of what I find fun isn't possible simply do to the size of the dev team.

I understand you want your voice to be heard, but being actively involved in development is a bit more difficult than most people think it is.

We also need more interaction from managment and the producers/directors. It blows me away Severlin only talks to the community once a year and it comes off as drastically out of touch and trying to hype up stuff we don't want or care about. He and others higher up should be actively engaging the community every week and finding out what the player base actually wants. And we need an additional community manager, one that better understand MMO's and one that better understands Lotro.

Sev gets a pass from me because he is also in charge of DDO. I also wouldn't be surprised if he is actively coding and doing other grunt work on top of running the company. He could poke his head out a bit more sure.

The person I want to hear to from is the Lotro Lead. Doc left in December and we have no clue to took his place. Whoever it is should make a forum post every two weeks detailing the current projects, or maybe do a q and a.

As for CM. Cord has said numerous times that he has played DDO more than Lotro. Ideally he would become DDO CM and we would get a Lotro CM. However there are more pressing positions to hire before another CM.

[BadJuju]

When I see level 85 relics on 99% of players legendary weapons, and when I get level 100 loot from a level 120 skraid, I find it hard to think anything else deserves the title of lotro's biggest problem when these developers can't even maintain and scale their own game.

[elderlygamer]

Performance has been an ongoing issue for lotro since Rohan. For a game as old as lotro, simply running around in the landscape should not lead to rubberbanding, lagging, hitches or disconnects, still it does so regularly for many players. A mmo must run smoothly on most machines, not just on certain setups of a few lucky players.

This was an issue over a decade ago. It's still a issue as I discovered over the past few days. People have complained about performance probably every month since the game launched. This is something I don't expect to ever change. It just is what it is.

Create a forum for bug reporting.

I'm guessing you haven't looked at many bug-reporting forums for other games. People post A LOT of duplicate bugs. Most bug reports don't use the requested format. Most people don't put enough information. Most people do not put steps to reproduce. Some use a bug report forum to complain about stuff that's not a bug. Some use it to request assistance, ask for refunds, etc. I can see why they'd not want to use a bug report forum as it would be a nightmare to handle. And I do not think LOTRO players would be the exception to the norm.

The second issue with MMO design is consistent playing. Simply put, part of your player base will play consistently for months/years at a time while the other part will come and go when they please. Eventually this becomes a problem as long term players will eventually have an insurmountable advantage over the newer/short term players. So in order to close the gap, you create catch up mechanics, level cap increase and reset gear. This tends to upset longer term players since all of their hard work was made useless almost instantly.

Useless why? I don't understand that mentality. Gear and characters are not useless just because every single spec isn't maxed out. Anyone who gets upset by a level cap increase should probably not be playing an MMO.

[Bogglie]

..........
Itemization:
-The System of imbued legendary items is a complete mess for anyone that is not at the maximum potential at any time. Catching up is litterally impossible and even though players asked for a chance since years, there is still no change, just the "announcement" of a likely rework another year in the future.
.......

Agree, FULLY, as a Minstrel I have no choice but to level as a DPS where 99% of the game is solo content, the very content we have to run for gear, scrolls, crystals....the game's logistics make it necessary to have a well geared DPS as your first alt for a foot in the door. ( to solo through dailies, EM scourges, RT's...etc)

The irony, my starting goal 6 months ago was to get to raid level, where apparently a minstrel is "supposed" to heal....so I now have many more months to go to gear a healer? -
the stat balance & Li's are totally different, as is it takes a week to earn enough embers for a single level 12 Essence or 376 gear piece, forget that.

Other players that seem unable to crunch these numbers get irritated when I join groups as a DPS, not good long term prospects for any heal class, you get a reputation.

Performance has been an ongoing issue for lotro since Rohan. For a game as old as lotro, simply running around in the landscape should not lead to rubberbanding, lagging, hitches or disconnects, still it does so regularly for many players. A mmo must run smoothly on most machines, not just on certain setups of a few lucky players. ......

This issue may be resolved, a Kinny says LOTRO just said June 24th is the date we start the switch to 64-bit...I cannot wait, where MT is among the worst of lagging content, it's also a huge source of scrolls.



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