What's wrong with this game?

[Signe]

I'm a captain this time around, too, and it works out pretty good for me when it comes to solo play.  Unfortunately, like many have said, I don't really find the game compelling enough to drag me away from FFXII or the books I'm reading currently.  I log in every so often but I don't find it particularly motivating.  Maybe it's the "funk" I'm in at the moment, but as I've stated before, I keep thinking I should like the game more than I do.  It seems as if it SHOULD be more fun... it just doesn't FEEL as fun as it should.  God, it would be so cool to have CoX combat in this sort of game or have interesting bits like there are in this game in CoX.  Either or.  I don't care.   I would be all over it.

This post MIGHT not make sense.

[stray]

I'm playing a Champion. It doesn't feel better than any pre-CoX melee combatant. I just queue up the same basic power attack over and over again, or use a frontal aoe for multiples.

Maybe I'll try a Captain.

[Nebu]

Am I playing a different game then everyone else?  I feel heroic.  Yeah, first 8 levels or so were mediocre, but I hardly notice them due to the interesting quest lines.  Then at one point (at level 10) I ran into some Mordor type creatures, complete with dread effects and whatnot, and felt a rush.  After this I dove into the main storyline and am enjoying that immensely.

I played a burglar for the past week and I feel anything but heroic.  Hell, I don't even feel that sneaky.  I was hoping to pop from the shadows with a powerful attack or sneaking past some guards to get into a key area.  Up to level 20 I don't even see a reason why this class is in the game.  I don't bring anything all that important to a group.  If that improves at higher levels, great.  Be nice if they were to give me a hint that might be the case.  I'd rather learn that I'm important in game than from some fan site.

[Trippy]

And yet that's exactly what Blizzard did with WoW -- they focused on the journey not the destination (the end game in this example) initially -- and most people who play WoW aren't raiders which implies that to them the journey is what's important, not the destination, or at least the journey is interesting enough that they keep playing till they eventually reach the end game. Yes the power gamers are going to blow through the regular content, good or bad, to get to the end game but are those the people Turbine should be catering the game to?

Are you saying they should cut back on the current plans for crafting, monster play and high end raids to rework the 1-20 game?  That's 3 starter zones, maybe I'm unusual but I have spent about an hour in the shire and have not even visited the Dwarf/Elf starter area yet.  I'd agree combat needs some work and some more character choices to make your character more unique are needed but I think they are stuck with the sizes of the zones and most of the quests as they are at the minute.  I believe that shipping without decent crafting, at least two high level raid areas and monster play would be a major mistake.

It's not just reworking newbie zones -- it's improving the fundamental gameplay. Go back and reread some of the early posts in this thread. Look at how many of the people in Bat Country played for a little bit and then stopped. Unless they decide to convert the game into a player-driven economy crafting is not that important and having a working auction house or other goods distribution system is much more important. Raiding, as I've already said, isn't a top priority if people are going to stop playing after they get to level 10 or so. The only open question is the monster play. That might be interesting and the only thing, other than the setting, which will distinguish the game from others out there.

[Trippy]

Am I playing a different game then everyone else?  I feel heroic.

I don't. I'm lucky if I can kill two blues with my Hunter if I don't get a chance to fully prep before hand (charge up, lay a trap, etc.).

Maybe thats the difference.  I am playing a Captain, and do pretty well for myself.  I use different techniques while engaging enemies as well;  I like this.  It is nice not depending on auto attack!

Guardian was fun pre-nerf (I didn't play him much afterwards so I can't really compare) and I was able to wade into groups of mobs a la a Tanker in CoH and come out victorious. The Hunter, unfortunately, is very poor when taking on multiple mobs at once because it is too easy to interrupt bow skills (they even nerfed Hunter's further recently by allows mobs to cancel attacks). Minstrels in contrast have insta-cast DD spells and you can cast them on the move while Hunters have slow ass firing times and you have to stop and wait for the server to register that you've stopped before you can start the firing animation. They even slowed down the focus buildup skill in the most recent patch making the Hunter even more "sluggish" to play than before.

[stray]

Hey guys, it looks like the Dwarf areas are 1) underpopulated and 2) far more unfinished. Looks like a place where input is needed even more.

[Trippy]

Hey guys, it looks like the Dwarf areas are 1) underpopulated

That's cause that huge group of people that made Dwarves when the area first opened have progressed through (quests end around level 12).

and 2) far more unfinished. Looks like a place where input is needed even more.

People have been giving plenty of feedback on the Dwarven areas but feel free to give more if you like.

[stray]

Hell, for one, the intro quest doesn't even give me enough cash to train. The NPC trainer quest is the first quest that follows the intro.

All the scripted battle scenes with Gimli and Gandalf cut off the music and sound. Just becomes dead silent with chat text over their heads (perhaps someone else can run through and see if it does the same thing on their machines?).

[stray]

I noticed that I can't swim underwater. Does that change? Are there any underwater scenarios later on (i.e. the Dead Marshes)?

Just thought it was strange, since DDO makes use of water, and both are basically using the same engine.

[Venkman]

WoW definitely feels like more of a condensed world than this one. That may play a factor in the enjoyment. I can accept some areas having a different level of content completion than others (feels like Humans have more than Elves in newbie areas, for example). But I'm not familiar enough with all areas to know if density is good anywhere comparatively.

First impressions are huge. But for those not in beta, or who aren't here yet at least, what I think matters most are the newbie areas, class distinction/abilities, and the sense of always having something compelling to do. If it's just WoW in Tolkien space, that's not going to be enough to woo people from WoW. What I don't think matter right away are economy and Raiding. Those are very important for crafting, which isn't done, and the endgame, which nobody is at.

So, what will compel people to this game? And I mean beyond the license. That'll maybe move boxes, but it's a license most relevant to people already in this genre anyway. This is household name stuff. But it's also been iterated so many times since the 70s, the core differences have become fewer and fewer as years go by. I understand why LoTRO feels pretty much like WoW in terms of mechanic, but I wonder: how different could it have been?

LoTR defined the rules of Lore
EQ1 et al have defined the rules of Play for this type of Lore?

[Trippy]

I understand why LoTRO feels pretty much like WoW in terms of mechanic, but I wonder: how different could it have been?

It potentially could have been quite a bit different but Turbine took the conservative approach in every single design decision about the game.

[stray]

how different could it have been?

It could have resembled the movie based beat-em-up titles a bit. At least as far as the action goes. Those aren't particularly great games in their respective genre, but they would be great as far as mmo's go.

This is what I was getting at when saying it could have used some of DDO' features, just taken a step further (like dodging, blocking, frogger like obstacles, spikes flinging out of walls, wall climbing, etc.).

It's funny that the most popular LotR based games are fast paced action adventure titles and real time strategy games, and they decided to just wing it with another Diku model (with a ripped off WoW interface to boot).

[Arthur_Parker]

WoW definitely feels like more of a condensed world than this one. That may play a factor in the enjoyment. I can accept some areas having a different level of content completion than others (feels like Humans have more than Elves in newbie areas, for example). But I'm not familiar enough with all areas to know if density is good anywhere comparatively.

There's a patch every 2 weeks normally on a thursday, the Dwarf and Elf area was just added after the wipe so that was about 3 weeks ago.  I haven't even visited the Dwarf/Elf area yet as what they seem to do is add enough to get a section of the game working and then revisit it later.  I know they just recently added quest rewards to the trollshaw area and that's been in the game since I started in September.  I also have not gone through the epic storyline much yet, as various parts were badly bugged the times I attempted it.  North Downs is currently the most complete and enjoyable zone in my opinion.

The big changes I'm waiting for are to the combat damage system, grey mobs used to aggro but not hurt you much, then they super buffed them and are I believe gradually bringing them down again.  The damage bonus from the "Might" skill is rumoured not to be working and race traits aren't in the game yet.  So I'm expecting another revamp to combat skills in relation to power usage, when soloing about half my skills aren't worth using as their power cost isn't worth the damage output.  The problem is even worse for groups of mobs, it's a lot more effective to concentrate on killing one mob at a time and ignore aoe skills as a Guardian, due to mob health regeneration.

[Arthur_Parker]

I noticed that I can't swim underwater. Does that change? Are there any underwater scenarios later on (i.e. the Dead Marshes)?

Just thought it was strange, since DDO makes use of water, and both are basically using the same engine.

Don't think you can swim underwater, being in water seems to stop certain skills being used, healing etc.  There's boss in Fornost that's makes use of this as he's in a largely water filled area.

[Engels]

What's really starting to bother me about this game is a complete lack of originality in just about every aspect.

The quests are so pat that they seem to have been designed by the SOE bimbo advertisement girls. I found a quest last night referring to the "Lay of Nimrod(el)" and I just couldn't help but wonder if they're just laughing at us.

The combat mechanics are completely derivative of CoX/WoW, but without the seamless execution of either. They work 'alright', but infuse little or nothing to the genre.

The mob selection is repetitive and have an entirely EQ-esqe level of overpopulation and pointlessness. I'm all about wolves, really, but we're talking dozens scampering about in the open fields.

I smell management over-involvement in this project; a total top-down creative design that's stifled every attempt by a dev to infuse any creativity. In some situations, that's good. If your management is the head of Cryptic. Most of the time, however, management has the literary imagination of a filing cabinet and I fear that's what's going on here.

I do enjoy many aspects of the game, but overall, the play feels entirely by wrote based on ancient diku stratagems. Its stale, and its not even out of the box :(

[Furiously]

I really feel like I'm playing DAOC, only without the PVP. Then again I'm playing a hunter.

[Xanthippe]

What's really starting to bother me about this game is a complete lack of originality in just about every aspect.

The quests are so pat that they seem to have been designed by the SOE bimbo advertisement girls. I found a quest last night referring to the "Lay of Nimrod(el)" and I just couldn't help but wonder if they're just laughing at us.

The combat mechanics are completely derivative of CoX/WoW, but without the seamless execution of either. They work 'alright', but infuse little or nothing to the genre.

The mob selection is repetitive and have an entirely EQ-esqe level of overpopulation and pointlessness. I'm all about wolves, really, but we're talking dozens scampering about in the open fields.

I smell management over-involvement in this project; a total top-down creative design that's stifled every attempt by a dev to infuse any creativity. In some situations, that's good. If your management is the head of Cryptic. Most of the time, however, management has the literary imagination of a filing cabinet and I fear that's what's going on here.

I do enjoy many aspects of the game, but overall, the play feels entirely by wrote based on ancient diku stratagems. Its stale, and its not even out of the box :(

That's pretty much how I feel.  I feel guilty having a beta key since I don't really feel much like playing it.

[Venkman]

Arthur, thanks for clarifying when they added Elf/Dwarf lands. They felt new, mostly because of their seemingly-sprawling mass. Reminds me of the difference between Night Elf and Troll lands in WoW. The former is the most content-complete experience I've had in this genre. The latter felt like they decided at the last minute they needed to add the race.

[Righ]

Well, they have two choices:

1) Make the entry game SO fun that people will happiy hang around or

2) Create an endgame so novel an appealing that people will endure anything to get to it (a la DAoC)

I disagree strongly. I think the ONLY choice is number 1. WoW's endgame is pretty uninspired to be honest, but people stick around for it because it's the only show in town, and they have a significant investment (social and character) after having played through a very entertaining early game. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Lineage II has a diabolical and boring grind before a reputedly brilliant end-game. They just recently managed to get 100,000 'players' in the US, more than half of whom are bots used to make the grind bearable.

I loved castle sieges in Lineage, and because it was one of the first Mac online games I endured the grind to get to the point where I could participate in the sieges. However, I couldn't even cope with the low-level grind in Lineage II, despite having a strong desire to play the siege warfare game again using a more involving graphic engine. That's from somebody who actually understood the end game and fell into the demographic of being a player looking for that sort of game experience. No wonder L2 choked.

I didn't play DAOC either, even though it seemed like it would have a similar end-game appeal as the Lineage games. I won't go through a shit grind to get to a game, and now that WoW is out of the bag, nor will most of the MMORPG community. That day is done, McQuaids. People may want character development and powerful shiny in RPGs, but they want the game to be fun from day one.

LotRO fails at fun, despite being a well-executed environment with some good mechanics. They need to take a seat next to Raph at fun school.

[Venkman]

Kinda what I'm wondering here: what isn't fun? I ask seriously, having read through the thread. Are there specific things that could be fixed, or are people basically writing this off?

I'm not so starry-eyed to believe people invited to beta believes themselves to be there to make a game better. But if there ever is such a group, we'd be a part of it I'd imagine, particularly those who've been around since August (I'm in all of five days here, so it still has that new-car smell to me). LoTRO specifically targets us. Maybe they hope the license will draw new people in. But who in MMOGs haven't been playing them because MMOGs deliver experiences based on Tolkien's work? That's why I said earlier that the iterations of Tolkien have sort of defined the rules for iterating Tolkien.

WoW did that the best so far, only by nature of how many people they appealed to. LoTRO copying that model, to me, is something of a mistake. Nobody smaller than the Military or Pharmaceutical companies have the cash to go up against them directly. So where does LoTRO need to differ?

Crafting to me is not an answer. For one it has a narrow appeal by default. For another, beyond consumables, crafting will always be made irrelevant by drops eventually. The latter is just easier to control by the devs.

Combat? What could change there beyond balance and polish?

Does LoTRO need PvP, maybe against some shadow force working for Mordor that isn't an obvious good-guy/bad-guy thing? I say that because, typically, the bad-guys are out-numbered by the good-guys, by default. People don't come to these games in droves to play an anti-hero. That's a fun activity for some, but is not the widest appeal. Even WoW's "bad guys" are just misundertsood.

Better story-driven quests? A sense of linear narrative, working towards a larger goal? This is sort of where I'm at actually. WoW is a persistent world of activities. There's no sense of advancement there. No matter the quest, your alt can do it all again, years after you technically "solved" it. Does LoTRO require the ongoing narrative people thought justified AC1? And is that not present enough?

[Righ]

People say 'polish' when discussing WoW, but its actually meticulous detail in arranging the scripted quest content such that it flows well for the players engaging it. Alliance is better than Horde for a reason - they rushed the completion of Horde, and minor things make a big difference. Consider the path of an Orc - the Valley of Trials is great, the quests are fun and involving, and you can do them yourself without difficulty as you learn your character for around an hour (first time through). Then it's off to the troll village and the orc town that are half a large zone apart. This isn't like your Goldshire experience - there are tiresome quests getting mob drops that are too infrequent, and a lot of running. Then there are a couple of quests that are tough for solo play, particularly with certain classes - a human in his castle, a goblin with his imp. Forced grouping at a much earlier stage, and in the latter case it is in the middle of a quest chain that leads to one that is involved in the Durotar to Barrens transition. If you group up, the preponderance of 'mob drop collecting' quests becomes frustrating, as these are quicker to do solo.

The reason most of these games fail, and the reason that low level WoW Horde fails (certainly in comparison to the Human and/or Night Elf experience) is that you need a story arc that is engaging and it needs to fit a level of tough that requires players to make use of their developing class abilities without forcing them into grouping or circumventing mechanics or content. Some people may never want to group, but most will - but after they have had time to digest the game mechanics, learn their character, and meet a few people. When you do put a group encounter in front of people, it should engage that group long enough to make it worthwhile - forming a group to kill a goblin for five minutes is sloppy design. And sloppy design is what LotRO, and most every other MMORPG exhibits in spades. That's why you can't 'patch in the fun', and why rushing a launch is fatal.

[stray]

Like I said in the other thread, I don't really know how to comment well on a diku other than: "Trash it."

But....

Getting rid of wolves is a good idea. Or, alternatively, if I am going to fight wolves, then make it where I have to fight an entire pack at a time. If I'm going to fight orcs, make it 3 at a time (and possibly scale it up later). And then keep groups of 3 swarming after me. Make this game feel like pre nerfed CoH -- Make it fast, and make me feel like an overpowered badass.

Up the mob count, up the base power of attacks, and up the speed at which those attacks cool down.

A party battle should have 5 characters taking on 20 mobs at a time.

And just in case anyone thinks I'm jumping the gun here, the Return of the King console title pretty much plays out like this (or any of the LotR titles for that matter....Just that the Return of the King is the only good one). Just about any action title does. Console games have no qualms about making characters feel heroic. Neither did the movies (take that scene when the Fellowship had to fight all of those orcs and that big Troll in the first movie, for instance). MMO games have all kinds of problems with making players feel like badasses.....And that tradition needs to be broken.

Also, before anyone says "Only Gandalf, Aragorn, and Legolas could pull off that shit...Not Joe Noob", I should remind them that Eowyn soloed the freakin' Witch King. She had never even been in battle before that.

Not to say some kind of hyper-combat system is the end all, be all or anything, but it's a start at least.

[stray]

[EDIT] I think I'll hold off on specific polish/quest complaints until the next patch.

[WayAbvPar]

I am beyond frustrated at this point. My level 19 hunter is utterly incapable of living through a fight with more than 1 mob in it, no matter how far below my level they are. All my quests require me to either fight my way through dozens of fucking wolves with aggro radii the size of Alaska or try to sneak past them, aggro them anyway, and then die when I have 10 wolves chewing on my ass. The quest directions are vague and all but useless.

The Lone Lands are a mess. Seriously.

I am done until the next patch. I picked up Civ IV again- couldn't find my DVD, so I did myself a favor and found a good No CD crack for it 

[Engels]

Ya, I picked up Total War II till the next patch. For now, its Christians vs Moors till they do some tweaking.

[Nebu]

Rather than continue to grind away on one character, I've chosen to make a few different races/classes and look at the various starting areas.  I really love the look of some of them.  I've also found that the classes vary greatly in ease of play.  I'm not sure how this changes at the higher levels, but have to hope that things even out later.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, I figured I'd add my comments here.

I've only played very briefly but so far I have some things I like , a big ho-hum, and one thing I dislike.

Ok, my likes:

Classes seem cool and have a decent movie feel. Ditto the races obviously.
The Elf intro was cool. The human one was semi-cool but not to the same level.
I was intriqued by the whole "parts of the game play out in a story-mode" thing that happens with the Nazghul towards the end of the intro.
I like the potential of the various titles, kind of reminded me of accomplishments on XBOX360 or the Badges in COX.

Dislikes:

At no point did I ever feel like a hero. I felt like generic newbie 3063 in every other MMO I've ever played.

Ho-hum:

See my dislike. So far the license feels mostly wasted and I feel like I've played this game before.

My thoughts:

Make us heroes damn it! I don't want to be some random human extra. I want to be a frigging hero tearing through hordes of Orcs! I want to feel like I can kick ass like at the end of the Fellowship when Boromir and Aragorn each kill like 2 dozen Orcs. This "kill 12 wolves" stuff is what every other MMO does, it shouldn't be what I'm doing in LOTR. I should be fighting evil, I should never, ever be in a 1 on 1 fight unless it's a boss or something. I should wade into hordes of enemies and lop their arms off. And it should happen right off the bat.

[Xanthippe]

Combat? What could change there beyond balance and polish?

Combat's not fun, it's frustrating.  I don't know how to change it specifically, but WoW combat is more fun.  CoX combat is more fun than WoW.  EQ2 combat is less fun than WoW.  LOTRO's is less fun than EQ2.

People smarter than me can, I'm sure, quantify these different approaches to combat. 

[CmdrSlack]

I don't mind the combat all that much, but it's also not really impressing me. 

My main beef is that there's one good tactic for playing a low-level loremaster.  Basically, I send in my raven to debuff the target, then perhaps have him distract a ranged-using second enemy.  The first target rushes me and I try to spam effects while casting burning embers and autoattacking away with my staff.

Really, I think autoattack is what creates a lot of the "meh" feeling for me. 

I would prefer to see each class get a few varied attacks that must be activated, with varying cooldown timers ala CoH.  Perhaps the melee classes have this, but as a loremaster, I'm left wondering if my other abilities are doing much for me in combat...it's really all about my two damage-dealing spells ... stuff dies so fast that it's hard to use all of the abilities each fight.

I do, however, like that I have very little downtime between fights.  Now if only the fights involved just a touch more strategy. 

[Venkman]

Effectively, combat in LoTRO is just like combat in almost any diku-inspired MMO. It's the details that are slightly different, things like what archetypes get what abilities, and how everything can be adjusted by Achievements (themselves sorta like the EQ2 Traits system and whatnot).

I feel the "meh" can be resolved by balancing and timing. The reason I said what I did above is because what combat currently is probably can't be changed anytime soon. The only game to radically reinvent combat was SWG, and it took them two and a half years even to launch the new system. I know some people feel "radical" includes major nerfs or adding items with stats, but that's just balance and adjusted inputs, not a wholesale redesign of the user experience.

CoH combat is the most engaging combat system I've played in a stats-based RPG. Mostly I felt that was because of the way archetypes could be combined, but also because almost all abilities were front-loaded insta-casts with countdown timers afterward. It felt very twitchy, in a good way. LoTRO just uses the same old tired convention of casting bars and timers. I do like that they borrowed the next-ability queue thing, but that still just autoactivates the next casting bar.

It's not awesome, but it's servicable. If they believe droves of players will come anew to the genre because of the license (otherwise, why bother taking on a license?) then I feel the game can succeed well, based on how it iterated EQ>WoW.

But I actually feel most LoTRO players will be coming from inside the genre. LoTR is a huge brand that resonates strongly with people who've played in every conceivable iteration of that world for decades. So by borrowing every convention of EQ-like MMOGs, LoTRO is just another MMOG. It currently lacks any real reason for the license, outside of the city names and occasional NPC name. After the first few minutes of seeing Tolkien's world derivated here from the movies from the books, this game is, at heart, something we've all already been playing.

For newbies who came for WoW, this'll be a reminder to them of all of the investment they made in WoW, potentially driving them back to their social circle, only some of which left.

For veterans that have been around longer, we've played this even more...

[lamaros]

It runs like ass on my PC. Sadly my Beta feedback is limited by this.

I do like some of the art, but all the animations are so nasty that whenever I move I am saddened. I don't know if the art style is deliberatly 2dish looking, and without shiny, or if it's just me bettings, but it made a nice change.

No PvP though, and the world just feels so stale. Guildwarsish.

[Azazel]

I agree with many of the posts here, and I haven't even double-clicked the icon since a couple of weeks before the wipe.

Combat either needs to be sped up to much, much faster and let me use my abilities more often instead of waiting for cooldowns, or it needs to let me just hit auto-attack and let me type to my friends while we wait for the mob to lose via attrition. This middle ground LOTRO tries to straddle is really quite unfun.

That's pretty much how I feel.  I feel guilty having a beta key since I don't really feel much like playing it.

This one quote nails it for me the most. Though I should point out that I despite the mild guilt, I still can't bring myself to bother to log onto LOTRO and yet I have no problems motivating myself to play WoW right now.

[Engels]

Guildwarsish.

So awful, but so true 

[Engels]

Well, I tried to play today, and it seems that the game is borken. OOC chat didn't work in North Downs, I was ghost-stepping all over the place, and certain mobs, bears for instance, wouldn't aggro me when shot at, only when I got right up next to them.

I also noticed an odd glitch; when someone approached my by horseback, first he appeared for a flash 'naked', and then just as he swung by, all his armor appeared on him.

They did add in fancy hats. Which is cool and all, but I'm getting that itchy Horizons feeling here. Focus people, focus!

[Venkman]

Sounds like the hallmarks of a good stress test to me :)