Storied tales #1 A better Helms Deep

While the biggest tale in the latest patch would be Aragons wedding. Update 27 brought us a rework of some orc banquet. 

A Storied Tale is a solo-able, story-focused alternative to an Epic Battle. Each of the five Helm’s Deep Epic Battles now has a Storied Tale

The reason

Epic battles were a nice idea that really found its footing in the later version in Pelagrir and Minas Tirith. The original ones in Helms Deep are a struggle when you start them, a bit slow in the middle and incredibly slow once you know them on the back of your hand. Often a major point in the storyline people dread and try to avoid.

In the early days of lotro plenty of story moments required a full fellowship to advance in a quest or epic story. Trying to retake weathertop or digging through some caves in Trollshaws used to be trodden with elites. Now with smaller mobs or boosts to your own character these are now their own version of Storied Tales.

Keeping the scenery, story and feel of the big battles while still allowing players to play through the epic story in Helms Deep required some extra steps though.

Streamlining waves of mobs and not touching parts that make the big battle not just a skirmish that would make people run for the orcs instead of the hills

An epic story in the big battles of Middle-Earth

After a playthrough it now feels an epic story. It keeps the 10.000 orcs on the background as you follow Gamling from the Central gate on Helms dike to the sides the orc pour over. Yourself gets attacked by a few orcs that made its way on the rampants. Standard level 95 orcs as you get assisted by fellow soldiers.

You protect the noble steeds of the Rohirrim down the stables. And a large warmachine rolls up to the main gate.Eventually the gate is destroyed and you have to retreat to the Deepening wall.

This ends the first of the 5 storied tales in the epic quest chain. Instead of 30 minutes of wondering where to go, what to die and why you died as you ran down the ramparts. You assist a guy in his defence of his king and country for survival. The story might seem familar for the ones that ran Helms Dike before. It takes you along the sidequests and the main quest. And this all in a nice and compact 10 minutes.

A more coherent story

All in all i did the full 5 Storied tales with the back and forth to Cenric in about an hour. Once you do it on a character that is there for the first time and you’ve other quests to do inbetween each Tale it will flow and feel like one of the later Black book quests or the battle of the black gate. Instead of wondering why that wall just fell apart beneath you and you died. The deepening wall gets breached and you’ll know where you are defending the Hornburg. 

A better intro then the tutorial

After running 1 Storied tale on Helms Dike i’d be far more in tune with the layout and all the sidequests. The deepening wall had no catapults to watch out for, but in the Coomb i’d know where to go for the most part. While the Glittering caves would still be a maze and the Hornburg was more story focussed then a tutorial. It could be tuned a little. It could show you the breach of the gate and the catapult spot without losing any of the dread upon you as Theoden rides out in a last ditch attempt.

Without realising it you would be ready to take on big battles for loot and promo points.

No risk no reward

That’s the downside to any solo version in lotro. Without any risk there isn’t any reward besides the quest reward and tokens. A bunch of happy critters in Ost Goruth or a pile of dead orcs in Minas Morgul are the rewards for you’. For loot you’ll have to go for the actual instance or group versions.

The new default

For any first time player the storied tales i’d go as far to make them the default. If you’d visit the quest npc it should start the storied tale. While still giving you the option to start them through the instance panel if you’d want. 

Tweak parts of storied tales to show you a few more places. Followed by an actual tutorial on the trait tree and siege equipment.

Aim the catapult and balista to some training dummies. And blast them away. You’d still have to wait at points in the big battles, but you’d be prepared for the onslaught on Helms Deep.

Reward players with 10 promotion points for each storied tale and another 10 -30 depending on how good they performed during the new tutorial. Enough to get you to rank 3 before actually entering the world of big battles.

More to do

An excellent alternative for someone that never wants to touch the big battles. Storied tales are now a quest instance that is up to lotro 2020 specs.

Add a little more and you could even have people return to big battles without having to be carried through their first few. The current bugs in level 100+ loot and the cap on level 130 jewelry would still be there, but thats for a different time. 

A great little update to an old dreaded point in your journey across Middle-Earth. Time to assist the Rohirrim and stop making new alts. Get your level 95’s into Gondor now.