So you want to solo book quests? You got it, part deux.

[Tarami]

Source.

My last post about this very same subject received quite a lot of feedback. Apparently there are a lot of passionate people out there - this is very exciting!

As a designer I love feedback that we get from our player base and when that feedback is real time, as it is with these blogs, we can effect change before change even becomes reality. This is what transpired after my blog a few weeks back.

I started looking through the feedback and at our tool sets and realized that there was a solution that was even better than the original one proposed in that first blog. In fact, there was a solution that was guaranteed to increase the general happiness while only inviting a few more groans of disapproval. I’m a realist - I will never please you all. I know this. I accept this. I can live with this. Even if it is like an itch in the back of my mind that I wish I could scratch.

A blog on the future of Epic Volume I content in Shadows of Angmar

Welcome to the blog - let me recap quickly.

We have an Epic story that takes the player through the story of Shadows of Angmar, then Mines of Moria and who knows what comes next - well I kind of do, but MadeofLions would literally crush me with an evil glare if I let anything slip. Previously, this story was a little disjointed and required you to be level 29 to take part in Book 2 even though you were level 14 when you came out of Book 1. Recent changes brought the level after Book 1 to roughly level 20-24 and as of December 1st Book 2 is reduced to roughly level 21.

Our Epic story is pretty darn cool! However, in the initial iteration of the game many of these feature moments require players to find fellowships. As any player base ages the number of players at the level which many fellowship quests take place is reduced and players arriving to the game later or those re-rolling can find getting a fellowship together difficult. Aside from finding new ways to provide incentive to that older portion of the player base - which is still there on the back burner - we needed to identify the problem and provide a solution.

I proffered a solution and some folks liked the idea, others poked holes in the idea and still more folks proposed counter ideas that would bolster their characters. The matter was left to rest in the blogosphere but remained alive in my mind.

Now, many many michrons later, (who would have thought that the opening to Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil would ever appear in my blog…) we have a second blog to tie everything together.

Marching Orders

My focus for the first update post Mirkwood is now set. I am focusing on getting the rest of Volume I completely revised. This entails an overhaul to all existing quests to put them into a logical level progression from one point to the next. This is a fancy way of saying that Book 1 through 15 following a level progression; that level progression hits 50 quickly, but it will make more sense than it did before. This also includes complete revision of all instances included with the epic and any landscape pieces that require players to form into fellowships.

This unfortunately also makes a liar of me with regard to my last Developer Diary. I will NOT be working on the North Downs for the next Book release. The changes to Volume I coupled with some other pet projects will take up all of my allotted time and that means that the North Downs portion of our presentation will be shunted to a later time. Fear not, we will be returning to our regularly scheduled programming shortly thereafter.

In fact, after I complete this blog I will begin working on the North Downs blog to give folks a little peak into what I expect to be working toward once we get back into the flow of things.

Volume I Epic Story on Landscape: Enter the MacGuffin

We have many quests that are part of the epic story pointing to areas of the landscape populated by elite monsters. These areas are daunting to the player who has no either cannot find fellowships or chooses not to find fellowships. After putting forth my original intent and re-working previous books of Volume I it became apparent that not everyone was pleased with the process of making the majority of these spaces into solo areas of the game world. For some, it appeared that we were trying to cut the teeth out of the game. A secondary solution needed to be found - one that would do the following: allow players to experience the content as they wanted (solo, duo, trio, quad or full fellowship), keeping the gold farmers at bay, little to no impact on stability and an acceptable amount of effort for the impact that this would have on the player base.

Enter the MacGuffin. In storytelling or movies the Macguffin is a plot point that catches the viewers eyes and drives the story forward. An example, see that gun in the movie as the camera passes, then see the intruder move into the next room with a knife in his hand - bet you dollars to donuts that the gun comes into play. For us, the MacGuffin will change for each quest in the epic Volume, but it will become a piece of the plot for those who want to utilize “inspiration”.

Here is an example:

In Book 4 Chapter 2 players are sent in search of the one black rider’s horse that could not be found after the flood at the Bruinen. They must travel into territory owned by Angmarim and hillmen loyal to the Angmarim and their elite trolls. Without a fellowship this can be a daunting or even insurmountable task to some.

Now, the quest will be changed and Elladan will provide the player with an elf-stone and inform the players that the elf-stone’s strength may allow them to draw upon reserves that they did not know they had within them. This is a way to “opt in” to the inspiration offered by the quest. This will be a short term buff that will interact with inspiration and allow players to earn the benefits that it will offer for solo, duo, trio and quad fellows. Fellows larger than this will not be able to benefit from inspiration as they are already more than capable of handling this content. The MacGuffin, the elf-stone, will have a longer cooldown timer that the effect but will provide players with enough time to activate it at the entry to the area where inspiration can be obtained and get out.

The nature of the MacGuffin may change as in Book 3 Chapter 4 Freeing Dori, where Dori will be the MacGuffin and players will need to be near him in order to receive the inspiration. We’ll be sure to provide some measure of visual indication when receiving or losing inspiration. Inspiration will also adjust dynamically to the size of your fellowship.

Are there doors that open here for some measure of exploit? Sure. We are trying to mitigate this by making certain that the trigger that allows players to receive inspiration is keep to a time frame that is long enough to provide the necessary benefit and short-enough that it does not become a tool to exploit. We’ll be testing this pretty heavily.

Volume I Epic Story in Instances: Inspired Greatness, or how I learned to stop fearing and learned to love the buff.

As I posted soon after the launch of Mirkwood, the final touches on the initial implementation of Inspired Greatness were not perfect. The buff was too much, it made the instances trivial and that was not the intention but rather than not ship the functionality we pushed it out so that folks could get through Book 2. Don’t get used to the power you have in those instances. It will be diminished in solo play.

Caveat! The initial post I made about inspired greatness only included solo solutions and that is what was implemented, but there was that outcry and not being one to do things without exhausting possibilities and I found a way to offer up the duo, trio and quad treatment as mentioned earlier. Thus the changes coming to instances associated with all Volume I epic books will allow for fellows, solo, duo, trio and quads.

Closing

So there you have it in a nutshell, the intention with the next leg of these revisions to our game. If the reception for Volume I changes is good and we can mitigate the exploitation of inspiration then we will consider giving this same treatment to Volume II somewhere down the line.

Next Up

Musings on the North Downs: Fellowships Are Not Dead Yet!

[Sky]

That early Motley Crue was some great stuff.

Also, I need to find time to finish Book 1 before it gets 'nerfed' 

[Numtini]

To me this is simple, just make everything soloable and finish each chapter with a nice but reasonable group instance and fix the LFF system. It's the back and forth from solo to group and the lack of tools to group that really kills people.

[Reg]

Either make all the storyline stuff soloable or at least have it so that it becomes trivial if you outlevel it.  All I want is to see the cutscenes and experience the story. I don't care if the quest is grey to me when I finally do it.

[Numtini]

You can do that already can't you?

[rattran]

Only for some, 1:4:7 and 1:5:whatever with Legolas & Gimli require at least 2 people, just due to the point and squat running from one group to the next. Sometimes even before you're done the first group. Gimli's burning desire to stand in between the 2 giants doing aoe doesn't help.

I like fellowship/small fellowship quests, but I'd prefer them to be optional.

[Sky]

The thing I like about that dev is that he seems to get it. Make it optional. If you want to group with your friends, great. If you don't, great. If you just want to duo or trio it, great.

I hope to see the day forced grouping is a memory like corpse runs or level loss on death. But hell, add those back in as an option for the hardcore, why not?

Though this is still only for the book stuff. An mmo would have to make each forced-group instance have solo/duo/group/raid/banana for me to finally really get into mmo. Anyway,  but it's nice to see a step in the right direction.

[Stormwaltz]

You can do that already can't you?

I tried to go back and finish the final quest in the Lone Lands when my Lore Master was 50.

She was swarmed and killed in minutes.

[Tarami]

Yeah, pretty much any caster is totally boned against 4+ mobs, regardless of level. The instant AoEs are too weak to kill elites even at low levels, and the powerful AoEs won't fire because you get too many interrupts.

[Numtini]

See to me, unless there's something significant at the end, I don't see the point in the "epic" storyline quests and having just done Weathertop solo (the only way you can do it as lack of forced grouping = forced soloing), there was nothing epic about it at all. The level 30 skirmish was more epic and had more storyline.

[Soln]

The problem has always been you can NOT SOLO many of the Epic Book Chapters.  For example, none of the instances in Fornost, Carn Dum can be solo'd even at 60.  You can't down Helcham alone.  And the fact the Epic Book unlocks very needed end game skills, this has been a real failure of the game.  Re-balancing all 1-50 and then 50-60 Epic content is long overdue.  Along with playstyle.  These aren't quests that are optional end game choices -- they are necessary skills for the game.  And they are also what really distinguish LotRO from other MMO's by having an overarching narrative.

[Sky]

See to me, unless there's something significant at the end, I don't see the point in the "epic" storyline quests and having just done Weathertop solo (the only way you can do it as lack of forced grouping = forced soloing), there was nothing epic about it at all. The level 30 skirmish was more epic and had more storyline.

Did you read the dev blog? He wants it to scale, so if you enjoy grouping, find people and do it as a group. It's not the way he wants it now, and is nerfing the solo buff so it's more of a challenge.

Forced soloing, heh. That's rich. You might be 'forced' to solo because it's the easiest or most effective way to level or whatever, but it's not exactly in the same league as forced grouping aka stay out of all dungeons in EQ2 kind of forced grouping. Maybe, if you have the right character, you might be able to do parts of the dungeon that are far below your level (unless of course you are geared in raid gear, ironically allowing you to be a more effective soloer).

No, forced grouping is forced. Forced soloing is a player choice. Unless I'm missing something and others can't enter the instance even if you're grouped, or the ability to form or join groups is disabled.

[Numtini]

Did you read the dev blog? He wants it to scale, so if you enjoy grouping, find people and do it as a group

I read it. I read dev blogs where people are going to happily PVE in a full pvp game too. Neither is going to happen, he shouldn't bother. Just scale it to solo because if it can be solo'd, it will be the only option anyone takes.

[Sky]

So, grouping sucks. Gotcha.

[Numtini]

No, grouping doesn't suck, it's just not efficient--particularly in a game where you can flag only one quest for LFF and can only see LFF messages from the zone you're in. I don't think it would be a tragedy for one instance at the end of what is supposed to be an epic book. But if you're not going to do that, then don't bother with a new system with the MacGuffin stuff that nobody is going to actually use.

I obviously love grouping, but I'm no different from anyone else. I was at Weathertop, nobody was LFF, I did the quest solo. That's what's going to happen.

[Yegolev]

The problem has always been you can NOT SOLO many of the Epic Book Chapters.  For example, none of the instances in Fornost, Carn Dum can be solo'd even at 60.  You can't down Helcham alone.  And the fact the Epic Book unlocks very needed end game skills, this has been a real failure of the game.

Q F T bitches.  It's not just WAHH WAAAHH, it's unlocking things.

More choice is good.