LOTRO’s Update 14 will be increasing the level cap to 100 and adding Western Gondor into the game. Since this is the first non-expansion update that is raising the level cap, it has caused some players to become worried if Update 14 will be enough content for a five level increase. Just on my YouTube channel alone, over 20 different people have asked me about this very topic so I decided to write an article addressing the issue.
So, is Update 14 a five-level update?
Update 14 feels like it has the landscape size equivalent of half of the Riders of Rohan expansion. Since the expansion was a 10 level increase, it seems at first glance that Western Gondor is the perfect size for a five level increase.
One thing to keep in mind though is that LOTRO has not had a filler zone since the last level increase. This is the first time this has happened in LOTRO. While there was the small Entwood area with repeatable content in Update 13, it is not the same amount of content players have been given between past level increases.
Every time in LOTRO’s history there has been a full-sized filler zone between level increases. Between Shadows of Angmar and Moria Turbine released parts of Evendim, Angmar and all of Forochel. After Moria we went to Lothlórien before Mirkwood and then between each of the later expansions there was Enedwaith, Great River and Wildermore. This means that with Update 14 players will not have had the extra experience given from a filler zone before heading into a new region.
At the very least, taking away the filler zone will provide less options to the player for choosing their experience path. Some players don’t do the filler zones between level increases because they feel the loss of progression makes the zone a waste of time. This could be part of the reason behind the switch in policy. Another could be that the team lacks the resources necessary to put out a ten-level expansion-sized area and a filler zone in the same year.
So, is Update 14 a five-level update? This will ultimately come down to how many quests are within the new landscape but based on the size of Western Gondor, Update 14 should have enough experience be a five-level update. There will, however, be fewer options to advance to 100 without the middle zone branching the path between Helm’s Deep and Update 14.
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During build 1, I played through the quests that took me through the update up to Dol Amroth and then the quests abruptly stopped. I know there are much more quests as many of the stories had the potential to continue on into Dol Amroth and Edhellond. I leveled up to 98 1/2. So all there has to be are quests for 1 1/2 levels.
If this update is like the Western Rohan expansion, perhaps we will begin to play the Dol Amroth specific endgame quests like we did for Hytbold. I mean we can start the quests at one level from the maximum. If so, there should be no problem leveling up to 100. You just have to slog though dailies, which some people really don’t like.
I personally know how frustrating it is to get through all the update content just to end up be below level cap. That happened to my main in Dunland. He was almost up to 74 but there were no more quests to play through. It irked me that I had a toon who was not at level cap even though I had finished all the quests. I had to do dailies and finally just finished off at level cap through skirmishes.
So, for those who are wondering whether Western Gondor is a five level quest zone, I say with confidence that it is a five level zone and that the stories are excellent (for those who read them as opposed to just plowing through content just to get to end-game) 🙂
This issue is easily solved. Turbine only needs to increase the overall xp awarded by mobs and quests to make the five lvls comfortably fit within the area. In fact if they wanted to make this a ten lvl update they could. Simply add a percentage here or there and boom, ten lvls. The question should be, is it worth doing the content for those five lvls?