LOTRO Players News Episode 43: A Difficult Discussion

10 comments

1. 

   Kaleigh Starshine / April 21, 2014

   Great show, everyone! 🙂

   Regarding difficulty, I do not think there is any question that an easier game was the direction the developers intended to go. If you look at the measures brought about with the expansion, you would be hard pressed to find a single one that increases difficulty.

   But as far as reducing difficulty there was:

   1. Removing the amount of skills useable at any given time by half or more

   2. Changing threat from something that needed to be managed into something that is automatic, more or less.

   3. Making itemization virtually meaningless, as there is no real variety amongst items.

   4. Forcing players into ‘roles’, thus removing much of the potential for reactive play.

   And likely more I am not able to think of at the moment.

   Despite the things that have been stated as the reasoning for the class changes, I think they were done for two primary reasons:

   1. To make gameplay more simple for the player (through removing choices and options, in the same manner checkers is more simple than chess)

   2. To make adding ‘skills’ easier for the developers, as can be seen with the extra trait tree points that are now given out for epic battles. With this system there is less of a need to spend time on development of new skills. Instead, they can just give out a few extra points to be spent in the trees.

   As to the response of the players to these changes and how slow the Overlords were in finally taking action, the only thing that makes sense to me is that there simply was a catastrophic blunder made in their data mining and/or interpretation.

   As questions about these things were asked, even from early beta, the response was, over and over, that polls were irrelevant, critical responses to things were just being made by those in a ‘vocal minority’ on the forums, and that these changes were what the players, as a whole, wanted.

   Without the furor lasting this long, I doubt there would have been any ‘rebalancing’ at all. I think the intent was to have things as easy as they were, more or less, and only the continual backlash against the ease of things (and the many that have left due to the changes) has caused any of this to come about.

   Reply
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     Andang / April 21, 2014

     I disagree with the second actual reason. They, already with the last several expansions, were trying to get out of spending time on new skills. This became immensely evident with Riders of Rohan where the champions literally only received three worse copies of skills than what they already had. Nothing else. The skill creativity well dried up because champions already had everything they could possibly need and still be even remotely balanced with the most powerful classes.
     Also we have not had a level cap increase yet and so until the end of this year, I don’t think it is a fair statement to have that big of an assumption. For all we know each class could have several new skills coming to each tree or maybe none at all. That remains to be seen though as the system has been out for less than 6 months and barely only one number changing update. (13.0 has only been out for a week)
     I think the entire class changes were a big blunder and the difficulty was just another victim of the blunder.
     I don’t think they ever said or even hinted that polls were irrelevant. Many players were and still are excited about the potential of these changes. A large portion of players had been asking for major class changes and LOTRO moved to what the industry is doing (which was arguably the worst possible decision they could have made in my opinion).
     I don’t think they intended to have the difficulty be this way the entire time. I think they left it easy to allow players to get used to the changes but I think that was a big mistake.

     Reply
     • 

       Kaleigh Starshine / April 21, 2014

       But they did create new skills for each of the classes with Helm’s Deep. A good many, actually. Why could these new skills not have been created for the old system, then allow players who felt there was ‘skill bloat’ only use the skills they wanted to, while allowing those who enjoy more skills to use them all?

       Regarding polls, they are actually against the Terms of Service for the forums, but some were allowed in the beta forums. The reason given for that was that they could act as a lightning rod for critical comments regarding the changes only. Any critical comments regarding the changes, even well-intentioned and sincere ones, seemed to be passed off as the person just being against change or attributed to the “vocal minority”, and in a very dismissive way, unfortunately.

       I agree though, if things were made easy on purpose to help acclimate everyone to the new changes, they were left that way for far too long. Let’s hope it all works out 🙂

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       Andang / April 21, 2014

       I think they needed the new system to free their creativity and give a fresh start. Also, by limiting things to certain lines they are freed up to create skills that would be out of place if you could have skills from all three. That being said, I see your point.

2. 

   Tinybel / April 22, 2014

   Can’t watch the movie atm but i’ll chime in anyways, the real easy mode came along way before the class changes when they nerfed mob damage.
   I believe they wanted to make the game easier but not through class changes.

   The whole idea of making the game more accessible and streamlined is a good one, how easy it has become though is balancing gone horribly wrong.
   I believe this has more to do with raw numbers though than with the actual trees.

   That being said did a Defence of the prancing pony T1 before they day on the green fields.
   It was still very easy (as it should be for T1) but it felt at least like there is a small chance i would die if i completely screw up.
   It’s small step up from invincible mode the last few months imo 😛

   Reply
3. 

   Tsu / April 22, 2014

   Angang: Landscape should be challenging but still easier than skirmishes and raids.
   Agree 🙂

   Angang: ‘Industry standard MMO generally too easy…’

   Game designers … Vision for game …players will come to game if they like it…

   But knee jerk changes to game play is not the way to go! I think it all went messy when TURBINE really dumbed down HD content to make new class changes easier to swallow…they are paying for that now…

   I notice your missing some poetry…

   Reply
4. 

   Tsu / April 22, 2014

   TSU POEM WARNING!

   There Was A Dionaea Muscipula
   There was an Pine leaf who swallowed a fly,
   I don’t know why he swallowed a fly,
   Perhaps he’ll die.
   He swallowed a Braxwolf,
   That ‘engaged socially with tables’
   He swallowed a Draculetta,
   That ‘counted, laughed and faded out’
   He swallowed an Ethelros,
   That ‘asked difficult questions’
   He swallowed an Andang,
   That ‘answered difficult questions with the wisdom of a flaming torch’
   I don’t know why he swallowed the LOTRO Players News team, and the fly,
   Perhaps he’ll die.
   There was an Pine leaf who entrapped them all,
   But the show was a ball,
   Luckily he didn’t swallow a horse,
   Cos he’d be dead—of course!

   Reply
5. 

   Tomeoric / April 22, 2014

   Sadly, as I’ve told kinmates, “until it is in game, it is not in game.” Like the housing update, all this is “we hope”, “they might”, and a lot of speculation on top of a letter containing some very broad strokes. Seeing is believing… believing will be seeing it in-game. Turbine has not given us their “word” on any of this, but it is sad that everything that they say now has to be taken with a grain of salt.

   Reply
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     Lilikate Buggins. / April 23, 2014

     This is the main reason I take lightly what we are told may be on the horizon. Seeing is believing! I generally treat it as fun speculation and probables rather than definate changes. Sad, I was looking forward to housing improvements.

     Reply
6. 

   Kazren / April 28, 2014

   Giving us more levels means it’s worthwhile doing the new areas, so I’m in. I also love the festivals. Give me my horsey!

   Reply