I recently started playing LOTRO again after a long break and was quickly reminded of why I enjoyed playing this game so many years ago. It's immersive, packed with lore nuggets, and tells a great story. One thing that always bugged me, though (then and now) was that some of the coolest elements of the game are locked behind a raid. Want to see a fight a balrog? You have to raid. Want to go toe-to-toe with Saruman? You have to raid. Want to battle with Shelob? You have to raid. Fight the Lt of Dol Goldur, the Watcher, an undead dragon and many other epic fights and environments all require raid parties to encounter.

I used to raid back in the day, and while it was fun, it is also a lot of work to put together 12 competent players who have the time and interest to run these long instances. I know you can join a kin, but kins often take raiding very seroiusly because of the rewards they offer. I'm not partiuclarly interested in the loot or rewards from the raids, though. I just want an opportunity to experience these fights, to see a Balrog, to hear first-hand the voice of Saruman, to feel the sting of Shelob's venom.

My suggestion, then, is to open up these raid instances to the non-raiding players. I'm not sure if you could do this without too much additional work or even if it's technically possible at all, but you could add a tier below T1 (T0?) that removes most of the loot (maybe only marks would be the reward ) and the most difficult mechanics. It would perhaps allow you to run with NPCs to fill out your group. Or scale the raids like you did with some of the instances so they can be run with smaller groups.

Overall, I still love LOTRO, but I want to see more of the epic environments and fights you've designed.