LOTRO Players News Episode 58: Western Gondor Review

7 comments

1. 

   Barnabras / August 4, 2014

   Excellent summary, I didn’t notice how much I was ignoring the story lines. As the story lines were being discussed, I was thinking, I don’t remeber that at all. But then when the actual task was mentioned I thought, I guess I did do that. I have not done anything with the essence system. It doesn’t seem to have much of a payoff. I think Turbine is trying to fix an issue that they have gotten themselves into. It seems to me, in the past, you could get multiple sets of the same gear with different stats. Then mix and match based on how you wanted to build. For example, crafted gear. I have noticed that those options have gone away over the last few expansions. I find myself getting a rare drop or reward that is much better than my previous. So I end up equiping it regardless of the individual stat bonus.

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2. 

   dgenxali / August 5, 2014

   Hi guys n girls! I just wanted to throw my two cents on the zone. I am loving it, the dailies do not feel like a grind, the new group area is awesome, I like the difficulty of it. The new essence system is amazing! We finally get to create the stats that we want and everyone gets to be different n creative with their roles and classes. As always, excellent podcast. Keep up the great work.

   -Ali

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3. 

   Tomeoric / August 6, 2014

   On the topic of not enough Quests/XP to make it to 100…

   Like Pineleaf, I made it to 100 before making it to Dol Amroth proper. I’m not VIP, so I don’t have that specific boost, and I used no XP boost tomes or anything like that. Here’s my thoughts on why it seems people come up short:

   – Mob Dodging : In the “rush” to get from one zone to the next, it seems people dodge more mobs than they actually fight.

   – Ignoring Tasks : Without any mithril coin resets or additions to task limits, this is around 10 additional quests per day, that can be completed in seconds.

   – Ignoring Warbands : Warband completions are quests; there are no raid level warbands so all of them can be solo’d without much effort.

   – Lack of Exploration : There are few areas that have a half dozen or more auto-bestow quests, but no direct quest that leads players to that specific area (the beachhead near DA, the camp near the broken bridge in the south, etc.).

   I think with a combination of the above, it would very easy for someone to not reach 100.

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     Braxwolf / August 7, 2014

     I barely made it to 98 before running out of quests, and I certainly didn’t rush through anything. I’m not VIP, but did not turn in tasks for XP either. I did most of the content solo, so I did not take on any warbands that were not already engaged.

     I don’t know. I’m having a hard time believing that some tasks and extra mob kills would make up for two whole levels in a 5 level update.

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       dgenxali / August 7, 2014

       well I sure didn’t run into that problem 😛 They openned the servers after the update and I was lvl 100 by evening by doing Sword Hall of Dol Guldur over and over again with kinmates. And then I finished all the Epic Book Volume 4. This has been the norm for me for last 3 updates/expansions.

4. 

   dgenxali / August 7, 2014

   and about M asking for a server, I’d recommend Brandywine and since you said you are a casual player, I recommend ‘Casual Raiders’ kinship 🙂

   http://casualraiders.guildlaunch.com/

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5. 

   Kaleigh Starshine / August 8, 2014

   Wonderful show and review, everyone! 🙂

   For me:

   The Good

   Immersion, environment, and story: Absolutely amazing. A friend and I walked every single step of our journey through Western Gondor. Up and down the streets of Morlad and all the way to Dol Amroth itself, the lands were alive with wonderful visions and immersive tales.

   The Essence system: Oh my goodness. Helm’s Deep was the absolute nadir for our ability to distinguish ourselves and make meaningful choices for ourselves. Itemization became so simplified and unimportant that one would wear virtually anything and it would make no difference whatsoever.

   With the Essence system, Might classes can choose to raise their Critical Rating, Light and Medium classes feeling that their armor is paper-thin can choose to raise their mitigations to a dizzying degree. There is so much that can be done, and I have to disagree with the opinion that essence armor is weaker than standard fare. Perhaps an Essence guide is in order… 🙂

   ,b>The Not So Good

   Tarlang’s Crown… should not have been released. Everything that is good and true about the stories and questing in all of Gondor is the exact opposite here, providing you can even read the quests with all the respawning Corsairs. I fear this area will become unpopular very quickly and Turbine will say, “See! No one wants group content”, when really the case is no one wants to have to fight the same respawning monsters over and over. An area like Limlight Gorge would have been so much better.

   Class and Skill Development:The five levels in Gondor gives us 2 skill points, which is worth one in non-specialized lines. And the way it seems like Turbine is proceeding with this (adding passive traits rather than skills) actually would have worked far better with the old trait system, where limited available slots would have forced the ‘meaningful choices’ that were promised, rather than a no-brainer decision to choose the new capstone for a single point cost.

   So far, the new system is the old system, except with a vertical orientation, the loss of many skills, and a whole lot more restriction. To justify the expenditure of time and resources, the new system had to be not only equal to the old but far superior. We are not there yet.

   Overall Grade: B

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