End game? Raids?

[cmlancas]

Let us not forget, friend, that people have their owen opinions as to what is fun and not fun. Clearly in X's post she says that she will -not have fun- raiding. Therefore she has no interest to play the game anymore.


Doesn't seem like "OMG TEH SKY WTF!1!"

[Hound]

Let us not forget, friend, that people have their owen opinions as to what is fun and not fun. Clearly in X's post she says that she will -not have fun- raiding. Therefore she has no interest to play the game anymore.


Doesn't seem like "OMG TEH SKY WTF!1!"

and as I pointed out wtf is the difference between raids in LoTRO  and raids in WoW? If someone prefers the game play or misses their old friends that is fine , I understand completely. It is the oh my gawd they put a raid in I am leaving part that baffles me.

The "OMG TEH SKY WTF!1!" comment was made in response to this entire thread because as I pointed out they snuck this one in on us, they only announced that the game would have raids last JULY http://lotro.turbine.com/article/130

[Falconeer]

Clearly in X's post she says that she will -not have fun- raiding. Therefore she has no interest to play the game anymore.

Therefore nothing. There's no therefore.
There's plenty of things to do beside raiding right now and there will be even more.
Actually, raiders have one instance while other players have the whole rest (99.5%) of the game.
How can that make for a "Therefore she has no interest to play the game anymore"?
It's not like they said "we are done with the group content, now we'll just focus on raids".

[Xanthippe]

You're missing the point, I think.  It's not just raiding.  It's the direction of the game, and the responses of the devs to problems known since beta.

I'm going back to WoW because I have more non-raid things to do there.  I dislike the direction LOTRO is heading.

The quote by MoL indicates the direction the devs are taking things.  No thanks.  I'll repeat it here.

Well, it's not supposed to be casual-friendly, ByDesign -- this is one area where we're letting the gloves come off a little. The raid is difficult enough that we feel comfortable being more unforgiving than we would in more casual-friendly areas. The flipside to having 'gameplay that suits different playstyles' is that not every playstyle is going to appeal to you personally. Everyone in the raid should be able to accomplish something on every run into Helegrod; it's just that three or four people in every run will be able to accomplish a little extra.

MoL

I like new shiny things.  This is neither.

Monster play is a supreme disappointment.  Great idea, poorly implemented.

The Loremaster class not only is disappointingly weak, but there are no plans to beef it up for _months_.  Unacceptable.

Crafting is uninspired.

Notice, I'm not saying that everyone should stop playing LOTRO immediately because it sucks.  It doesn't suck.  It's just that I'm not finding it fun.  Whether they make it more fun for me in the next months is irrelevant as to whether or not I should continue to pay money now instead of cancelling.  I've gotten my money's worth out of it so far, but I don't plan on continuing to pay for something that's heading the wrong direction for my fun.

It seems to me that people think I should continue to play a game _they_ think is fun.

[Falconeer]

No Xanth, I got you right. I know how you feel about it.
It was his "therefore" I didn't like. Call it nitpicking, but I was bored due my server's unexpected downtime.

[Khaldun]

It's not like they said "we are done with the group content, now we'll just focus on raids".

I dunno. It's not like they didn't say it, either. If people are concerned when the design focus turns to raids, it's because some of us know what historically has started to happen at that point in live management on MMOGs.

It goes something like this:

1) The first raid added causes balance problems that ripple through the game, especially with a PvP component. Either the gear available is substantially more powerful than other endgame-available gear (problem) or it's not (problem in that there is then very little incentive to run the raid, and the raider subculture complains bitterly).

2) Powergaming raid guilds rip through the raid fairly quickly, gear up fully, and complain of boredom. Sometimes they go off and do the PvP component, but now that they're so geared up, they pretty much discourage almost everyone else from doing PvP.

3) Non-raiders arrive at the endgame and no thought has been given to other game systems which might occupy them except for PvP, which may become prohibitive because of raider participation, and possibly crafting. Designing non-raid endgame content is conceptually too difficult for the team, so they don't try. Because even non-raiders are max progression, the live management team increasingly sees no point to adding new low-level or mid-level content.

4) Hence, the content development largely prioritizes raids until the next major expansion-level update.

----

I see the potential for a lot of this cycle with LOTRO. The devs didn't do a good job with crafting, and clearly don't have much of a feel for what it entails. I doubt they're going to make it a preoccupying system in its own right. They don't seem to have a sure hand when it comes to mid-level content beyond the stuff they did right on the first pass (particularly the Epic quest line, which is great). Raiders are the most skilled group of "lobbyists" when it comes to connecting with devs and getitng service for their own interests, even when it's not a matter of collusion between devs playing the game and highlevel raid guilds. Plus, the paradigm for raid design is now well-understood, and you can buy off-shelf dev talent from other MMOGs who have done raid design. Other kinds of sub-systems are conceptually more complex, and there just aren't that many people in the business who understand them well or have good ideas about how to work with those systems.

I can also see a lot of monster players just giving up if raid-geared level 50 freeps start to pour into the Ettenmoors in increasingly large numbers. As it is, I've found that well-geared freeps are hanging around just outside of Gram's picking off monster players as they log in and go off to quest. There's no dynamic spawn as in WoW, so it's pretty easy for even a small group to just sit around ganking people and killing NPC spawns as they appear. The safe zone for monsters is pretty small.

We don't really know what Turbine has in mind as far as content development past the introduction of player housing. If I had to put a wager down, I'd say the next major addition of substantive content is going to be another endgame raid or something close to it. Either that or adjustments to the PvP system, but that will become entangled with raiding over time.

[Riggswolfe]

Khal,

Monster play adjustments are actually coming before housing. I don't know any details however.

Turbine in the past has been real good about adding interesting things to their games. That said, I don't know how many LOTRO devs worked on their pasts games, particularly AC1. If the percentage is high I think we'll be fine based on how they worked in the past. They usually have interesting ways to gain gear and do new content.

I agree with your post to some extent as that is exactly what happened with WOW. However, I blame alot of that on two things:

1) Tigole being a major player in the WOW designs. This was the writing on the wall honestly.
2) Blizzard's glacially slow update process.

Turbine has one major update out, the summer solstice in a few days, the monster update in the late summer, and housing in October. At least one of those, Housing, WOW still hasn't done and has been out for years. The summer solstice is like things WOW used to do on major holidays but to my knowledge have sort of stopped doing. That major update, Evendim, was something it took many months for Blizzard to do. I'm only comparing the two btw because there are some similiarites and I didn't play enough EQ to make any valid comparisons.

It's the differences that will determine LOTROs fate. If it does the same endgame shit as WOW I predict it will die. It has a ton of players who are burned out WOW players who will leave if it follows the raid or die endgame plan. Right now, it appears that is not the plan, but time will tell.

[Falconeer]

It's not like they said "we are done with the group content, now we'll just focus on raids".

I dunno. It's not like they didn't say it, either.

That's one step short of paranoia.

Honestly, and I was thinking again to Xanthippe's position, I don't see this dreaded direction LotRO is heaading to. It's obvious they have to give some love to the raiders, but I still can't see why they should stop making content for groups. LotRO has its audience and it's not a WoW kind of audience. I seriously think it will stay a mainly group oriented MMORPG, and it's not because of the first patch (which again is for the 90% filled with non-raid content) that we can predict an incoming raid dictatorship.

I read your notes Khaldun, and of course new raids need to be added to the game, and they will. But the same is true for regular 6-chars group instances, some of which just entered the game through the patch alongside the raid instance. I don't think they'll botch it killing a different playerbase just becasue "crafting group content is harder than raid content" (?).

If anyone feels like leaving now to avoid greater disappointment later then it's more than ok. But I really think there's too much fuss just because A (one, as in the first one) raid has been added to a game which already has tons of content.

[Khaldun]

Khal,

Monster play adjustments are actually coming before housing. I don't know any details however.

Turbine in the past has been real good about adding interesting things to their games. That said, I don't know how many LOTRO devs worked on their pasts games, particularly AC1. If the percentage is high I think we'll be fine based on how they worked in the past. They usually have interesting ways to gain gear and do new content.

[snip]

It's the differences that will determine LOTROs fate. If it does the same endgame shit as WOW I predict it will die. It has a ton of players who are burned out WOW players who will leave if it follows the raid or die endgame plan. Right now, it appears that is not the plan, but time will tell.

Good point that there's a scheduled monster play update, I forgot that. Hopefully they'll make it easier to power-up the creeps so that there's still an adequate supply of creeps to make it interesting. I've already noticed that one major group of freeps in the zone are just there to mine in Isendeep: Turbine probably needs to keep a lot of creeps coming just so it doesn't become Farmer Central.

AC1 was the king of content updating. I think I may work up a mini-essay about the entire problem of content updating with AC1 in mind. My sense is that they were able to do it because: 1) they had one dev who was insanely, wonderfully committed to the development of the world lore; 2) they were willing to do new content fast and dirty, without over-testing it too much. Sometimes they got in trouble because of that, but still, it was a good way to go on the whole; 3) the graphics and underlying tech were simpler than today's standards, and so a smaller team of people could do more in a shorter amount of time.

I think you're right that if LOTRO gets trapped in the raid-development cycle it will in fact die. But man, that dev statement that appeared on the official forums in the raiding thread was a flashing red alert signal that they're getting caught up in that mindset--it was like watching an alcoholic fall off the wagon.

[Khaldun]

It's not like they said "we are done with the group content, now we'll just focus on raids".

I dunno. It's not like they didn't say it, either.

That's one step short of paranoia.

Honestly, and I was thinking again to Xanthippe's position, I don't see this dreaded direction LotRO is heaading to. It's obvious they have to give some love to the raiders, but I still can't see why they should stop making content for groups. LotRO has its audience and it's not a WoW kind of audience. I seriously think it will stay a mainly group oriented MMORPG, and it's not because of the first patch (which again is for the 90% filled with non-raid content) that we can predict an incoming raid dictatorship.

Call it wariness based on having watching most MMOGs have a "tipping point" at which raiding or something like it (Trials of Atlantis in DAOC) change the entire state of the gameworld system and suck up all the design energies.

WoW is a great example. As Riggswolfe points out, that has a bit to do with personnel, with Tigole coming on board. But seriously, it was actually a pretty head-scratching pattern to watch. Blizz spends endless time and care in crafting a game that's inviting to a very big market, and then once the game goes live, dumps about 75% of their design energies into developing content that a very small percentage of the playerbase can access. That says to me that there's something structural here, that raids as a subsystem in a DIKU have a way of changing the entire logic of live management. EQ and EQ2 and Lineage started with a powergamer/raider logic deeply embedded in their DNA, so I guess you can't look at them as examples of a "tipping point". But I can really see it happening to LOTRO unless the devs are incredibly clear-headed about limiting the influence of raids and devoting a very fixed percentage of effort to their future development. Right now, I don't see any signs of that clear-headedness in the limited kinds of statements that are coming out of the dev team.

In fact, the LOTRO dev team has gone very, very quiet as a whole, except for the guy who works on monster play.

[Riggswolfe]

In fact, the LOTRO dev team has gone very, very quiet as a whole, except for the guy who works on monster play.

My sense is that they're busy squashing bugs and reacting to some of the issues from the patch, real and percieved.

As for the raid stuff, I wouldn't go off of that one dev's posts. One, he seems to be mainly a raid dev, and two, he was somewhat defensive in his replies since it was a very anti-raid post he was responding directly to.

[Xerapis]

It's obvious they have to give some love to the raiders...

No.  No they really fucking don't.

[Falconeer]

*SOME* love. Why not? This is like solo players hating group content.

[Xerapis]

What's wrong with that?  This is our revolution, baby.

They've been hating on solo content long enough.  It's time to bring them down!

[Tebonas]

I have to agree with Xerapis here. The average raid-only player is not that tolerant towards different playstyles. They tend to take over games once they get a foothold in due to their dedicated playstyle. I saw it since Everquest. Remember that there only were two raids there at the beginning?

I'm not seeing it in Lotro yet, but being wary about it is something the past should have taught us, not paranoia.

[Falconeer]

If you are roleplaying some faction hate, I am in.

If you are serious, I am out. I think LotRO could be the first game with a good balance between solo, group and raid content.

Of course that won't make anyone happy, cause whining is free and apparently cathartic.

EDIT: spelling.

[Tebonas]

Right now I agree with you completely. The question is if the developers give in to the whining of one of these groups and destroy that balance. Only the future will tell.

And having been in a raid guild in both Everquest and World of Warcraft, from the internal boards I can tell you its hard to find better whiners than raiders if they set their mind to it. Which is only logical if you think about the fact that they are used to group efforts which Soloers obviously are not.

[cmlancas]

If you are roleplaying some faction hate, I am in.

If you are serious, I am out. I think LotRO could be the first game with a good balance between solo, group and raid content.

Of course that won't make anyone happy, cause whining is free and apparently cathartic.

EDIT: spelling.

I'll agree with you here. I think they may be the first game to truly do it right if they add some solo content from 40-50 and some lengthy solo/group quests (that aren't raid oriented).

[Merusk]

I have to agree with Xerapis here. The average raid-only player is not that tolerant towards different playstyles. They tend to take over games once they get a foothold in due to their dedicated playstyle.

It's not just playstyle, but time they have to dedicate to said whining, and the numbers they can muster to do it and their tendancy to congregate on your forums.

Yeah, your game may be 90% soloers, but if that last 10% makes up 80+% of your board postings you're going to pay attention to it.  You see this with class balance, content balance and overall game balance time and time again.  It's part of the reason I think official boards suck.. but then again, if you didn't have those boards they'd just be spamming /suggestions or /bugs about the lack of content.

[tkinnun0]

If you are serious, I am out. I think LotRO could be the first game with a good balance between solo, group and raid content.

You know which other game promised a good balance between solo, group and raid content? Vanguard.

Just saying.

[Falconeer]

These are not promises. There's a whole game with 50 levels of more than enough content for solo and group players. Raiders just got their candies.

Brad used to talk a lot while LotRO devs were busy actually crafting a finished game.

[Riggswolfe]

If you are serious, I am out. I think LotRO could be the first game with a good balance between solo, group and raid content.

You know which other game promised a good balance between solo, group and raid content? Vanguard.

Just saying.

WOW did as well.

[Xerapis]

No, I'm not completely serious.  Maybe a little serious, though.

If I could be guaranteed the shiney in a reasonable amount of raiding time, I might care more about raiders.  Same thing if I didn't keep hearing over and over again "no hunters wanted".

Raid advancement isn't an open free field trip that all players can join.  Raiders don't all live in their parent's basement watching Star Trek and eating KFC right out of the bucket.

My hate is truly reserved for the fact that incessant raider-whining focuses the endgame on them always.

There are other, better options.

Personally, I think that everything should be 5-man-able.  But that's just me. ~shrugs~

I'm not going to engage in any sort of personal attack or anything, but yes, I hope very much for the imminent demise of the large raiding lifestyle.

[palmer_eldritch]

Did my first raid today, and it is very annoying that the boss (spider queen in this case) only dropped one copy of the quest item you need. It's okay for me that she only dropped two pieces of nice lewt between 24 people, but only one of you gets to complete the quest as well? Blah.

[Venkman]

Ugh, I hate that noise. But it does seem in keeping with the rest of the game when drops are part of what is needed for a quest. I probably will have quit before I get to the point where I even need to wonder about setting aside my natural dislike for raiding though :)

[Hound]

Still not sure why people feel the game is ruined because the Devs added a couple of raids. If you don't care for em the just ignore them. Looking at the high end crafted stuff itappears to be just as good, and in some cases better than the raid gear. I am wearing all Padded Pristine stuff a tailor friend of mine made and when that stuff is critted it is better than anything I can get from a drop, raid or other wise.  Same with the items obtained in the Ettienmoors. I could give a fuck about the raids myself and plan on concentrating on the PvMP when I max out. If people want to raid then more power to them, it does not mean I have to or need to.

[Vanifae]

Did my first raid today, and it is very annoying that the boss (spider queen in this case) only dropped one copy of the quest item you need. It's okay for me that she only dropped two pieces of nice lewt between 24 people, but only one of you gets to complete the quest as well? Blah.

That is just poor game design.

[Evil Elvis]

Haven't tried the raids yet, and from what I've seen, I probably don't want to.

High-level dungeons in this game need a lot of work.  Hell, it takes 10-30 minutes (depending on your groups competancy) just to get into the Carn Dum / Uru instance.  God forbid someone leaves or gets disconnected once you're in; everyone has to go back out and escort the person back in.  The one res spot at the bottom of the Angmar is pure cockblockery, too.

The starter raid quests in my log have horrible rewards as well.  I guess they're the beginning of other raid chains, but I'm not impressed with the whole dangling-carrot thing.  They really need to learn from WoW's mistakes, and focus on solo and small-group content.

[palmer_eldritch]

If you are a caster (will/fate person), Barad Gularan has some great rewards for a level 50 6-man. The final boss is a total bastard though.

[Venkman]

Considering they haven't added any new servers, nor made any proclamations of new records broken, I think players are going to soon start trickling away before they get to the endgame. Therefore, smaller raid group sizes are in order. 12 people max in my opinion.

[Slayerik]

Considering they haven't added any new servers, nor made any proclamations of new records broken, I think players are going to soon start trickling away before they get to the endgame. Therefore, smaller raid group sizes are in order. 12 people max in my opinion.

I know about 8 of us who have trickled away.

[Hound]

Considering they haven't added any new servers, nor made any proclamations of new records broken, I think players are going to soon start trickling away before they get to the endgame. Therefore, smaller raid group sizes are in order. 12 people max in my opinion.

I seriously doubt that anyone did not think there was going to be churn, or that the game would fit every player. Just a guesstimate here, but our guild has had about a  50 or 60 percent retention of the original launch members.

I can't find it now however somewhere there used to be a site with a page that showed the  average time played in MMORPGs, Themis or Daedalus maybe?  Looking at my own play habits, out of all the level based MMO's I have played over the past 10 years I only achieved max level with at least one character in DAoC and EQII. Most of the rest I canceled somewhere in the mid 30's if I even made it that far. Some that never made it through the free 30 days were EQ1, AC1, CoH, and WoW. Not because they were bad games, just they never hooked me.

[Venkman]

Oh, I wasn't decrying the churn. It happens. The amount of months the average subscription-based MMO account was open was about 5-6 months prior to WoW's launch. That number shot up to 14 months, but that was of debatable relevance because a) more than half of all MMO players in the West were in WoW; and, b) that measure was taken 14 months after WoW's launch. I imagine that's trickling back down though. LoTRO designed their raid size partly based on history and partly based on post-BC WoW raid sizes. Why not? If it works for one, why not another?

You need an endgame and raiding has worked for other DIKUs, so it could work here. But not to the degree it works in WoW. First, there are going to be less players than WoW in LoTRO forever. Second, the same percentage of them are not motivated by the same need for the best of the best gear. Monster Play is more appropriate as an endgame for the LoTRO player (in my opinion) than straight-up raiding, as it arguably has some impact on some part of some nugget of the story. But otherwise, it's just a fun way of still-raiding, like BGs in WoW.

I'd like to see raiding cut down to one full-size group, maybe two. I'd like to see this implemented before the majority of the playerbase hits the later levels rather than after the fact when they realize they aren't retaining endgamers because they can't muster the appropriate force size in appropriate frequency.

[Tannhauser]

I'm in danger of trickling away.  Getting tired of Evendim solo and when I play it's hard to find a group.  Every damn quest seems to want me to swim across the goddam lake again.  I am 38, and there just isn't enough solo quests.  This is Turbine, monthly content is what they DO. 

I may unsub but will come back for Moria unless it's lvl 50's only.

Currently playing ST Legacy for the 360 and making-history.com

[Phred]

I'd like to see raiding cut down to one full-size group, maybe two. I'd like to see this implemented before the majority of the playerbase hits the later levels rather than after the fact when they realize they aren't retaining endgamers because they can't muster the appropriate force size in appropriate frequency.

I think they already have what you are asking for, as the end game dungeons like Cair Dun and Urugarth are already mini-raids, and damn annoying ones at that. It takes about an hour to reach Urugarth and longer to reach CD as you fight through pointless trash outside the instance. Then the trash begins in serious numbers inside. Most groups I've done  CD with always want to skip a lot of the mobs and then one group member goes LD and has to try to make it back alone from zone in. It rarely works; then a couple more decide to go back and help then they die too and it spirals out of contro. Even if they convert all the 24 man raids into 12 mans you're still going to have to deal with that crap.