Radiance Suggestion

[scottandjodie]

For a long time a lot of players have said the rad system is broke. So, I have a suggestion. Take the radiance off of gear and make it a level dependent stat like base morale, power, etc. For example, at level 50 you may have 1 radiance. You get to level 60 and now you have 5..enough to do the lvl 60 content..still offer hope tokens to allow and DP hope so your base 5 added to these lets you do watcher and DN. You level to 65, your base goes up to something like 7..allowing you to do the new raid. These numbers are not thought out, probably way wrong, but you get the point. Remove the gear gate and instead level gate the instances. Sam and Frodo didnt get new gear to go to mordor...they were just more experienced. Devs could then use this when they design instances. Want to force level 65's to cower when fighting a boss..no problem, you know what rad they will all have, and there are limited work arounds. Sure, this would require a revamp of the rad system...but thinking long term it removes the rad grind, keeps the lore of gloom in the game, and still gates content.

Anyhow, there is my suggestion.

Guyot

[gildhur]

So you'd have to do absolutely nothing to prepare for the r--ds? Brilliant. That totally fits with Turbine's design intent for r--d gating.

[scottandjodie]

Originally Posted by gildhur

So you'd have to do absolutely nothing to prepare for the r--ds? Brilliant. That totally fits with Turbine's design intent for r--d gating.

Yup, leveling a toon to level 65 is doing absolutely nothing. Besides, my idea has nothing to do with avoiding getting gear..I have my rad gear. It has more to do with NOT having to replace my tier 1 rad set with my 1.5 3-man set with **** stats or 2.0 rad set with even worse stats from DN. God only knows how much worse the gear from the raid in the next expansion will be. Gear gating is fine, but don't gate it with armor that has level 50 stats and 20 rad. My suggestion lets you build your toon and equip it as you see fit, while keeping radiance/gloom as a factor in the game.

[SGWB]

Originally Posted by scottandjodie

For a long time a lot of players have said the rad system is broke. So, I have a suggestion. Take the radiance off of gear and make it a level dependent stat like base morale, power, etc. For example, at level 50 you may have 1 radiance. You get to level 60 and now you have 5..enough to do the lvl 60 content..still offer hope tokens to allow and DP hope so your base 5 added to these lets you do watcher and DN. You level to 65, your base goes up to something like 7..allowing you to do the new raid. These numbers are not thought out, probably way wrong, but you get the point. Remove the gear gate and instead level gate the instances. Sam and Frodo didnt get new gear to go to mordor...they were just more experienced. Devs could then use this when they design instances. Want to force level 65's to cower when fighting a boss..no problem, you know what rad they will all have, and there are limited work arounds. Sure, this would require a revamp of the rad system...but thinking long term it removes the rad grind, keeps the lore of gloom in the game, and still gates content.

Anyhow, there is my suggestion.

Guyot

That's not a bad solution, but I'd prefer radiance to come from either deeds or the legendary quest line

Originally Posted by gildhur

So you'd have to do absolutely nothing to prepare for the r--ds? Brilliant. That totally fits with Turbine's design intent for r--d gating.

Grinding traits, levels, class deeds, legendary items, and relics is not doing enough? If they want to gate raids based on accomplishments then I'm OK with that. But gating on a particular gear set to the point of making crafted and rare drops irrelevant seems misguided to me.

Having to have "good enough" gear is fine. Having only one set of gear that is "good enough" is not OK.

[gildhur]

Originally Posted by SGWB

Having to have "good enough" gear is fine. Having only four sets of gear that is "good enough" is not OK.

There's more than one set of r-diance gear, FYI.

[Yula_the_Mighty]

I would have preferred radiance to be a character attribute you earn from doing the radiance dungeons. That is clearly not Turbine's intention. Instead you do the radiance instances to get class specific pieces of armor that have radiance and lots of other stats. In order to get the radiance to do a raid, you may have to give up other bonuses. You do not get any (very little) choice in the stats. You can only pick between the predesigned class radiance pieces that your character owns.

[newwwwb]

with stat bonuses being removed from radiance with SoM, its becoming something that has minimal effect outside of raiding. i dont know for sure, but i would suspect that if you took the radiance off the the radiance sets that are in game now, they wouldnt be much better than the crafted galadhrim set. i like the idea of a progression in raiding, but there are two problems with the idea:

1. raid gear being superior to all other gear. this has been addressed.

2. random drops make it a grind instead of a progression. hopefully the 'medallion' system fixes this.

[scottandjodie]

Another modification to this would be to make radiance deed related, and have each rad instance have a deed attached to it. So , you successfully run GS hard mode once, or even a set number of times, you complete the deed, and your toon has a +1 rad virture. Keep working through all the instances to keep the progression, just like virtues now. Then, as we enter mordor and the game progresses, you can run rad and rad requirements as high as the designers want, gate them, but not make it equipment dependent.

[gildhur]

Originally Posted by scottandjodie

Another modification to this would be to make radiance deed related, and have each rad instance have a deed attached to it.

How many times in how many different threads do we have to go over this?

They've considered deed-based radiance. They rejected it in favor of tangible radiance rewards.

Not only that, but a radiance deed per instance would be WORSE than what we have now. With Medallions you can run any part of any instance you want and work your way toward the gear or other rewards you want. With a deed gate, you would be FORCED to do every instance in HM to get anything. THAT is the problem, not the gear sets.

[scottandjodie]

Originally Posted by gildhur

How many times in how many different threads do we have to go over this?

They've considered deed-based radiance. They rejected it in favor of tangible radiance rewards.

Not only that, but a radiance deed per instance would be WORSE than what we have now. With Medallions you can run any part of any instance you want and work your way toward the gear or other rewards you want. With a deed gate, you would be FORCED to do every instance in HM to get anything. THAT is the problem, not the gear sets.

I agree with that problem from your point of view, but the problem with the system from my point of view is the Rad being tied to the gear. I really dont care how we acquire rad, what I care about is that the +20 rad gear SUCKS compared to the original moria set if you look at it without rad. Same with the +1.5 rad set. To ME that is the problem. So, bind the rad to something else. Deeds, LI's , whatever. Drop coins from the instances but have them work towards a deed or something else...just don't use it to force me to choose between nerfing my toon (worse stats on higher rad gear) or skipping instances (keeping my good +10 rad set and NOT doing DN). Again, I undestand your point, but my issue is completely different.

[SGWB]

Originally Posted by gildhur

There's more than one set of r-diance gear, FYI.

Four sets? how do you figure? I only count 3 sets currently in game, and only one set that matters.

The Moria teal set with +10 each except for the watcher dropped helm and shoulders with +20 each, total 80 radiance. Enough radiance for any current raid and very good stats overall.

The 3 purple piece set with +15 radiance each, total 45 radiance. Not enough on it's own to do the Watcher let alone DN. Worse still is that it's the chest, gloves, and legs, which are by far not the hardest pieces to get from the Moria teal radiance set, and the stats are nothing to write home about. The only good use for this set is for people who are not in raiding kinships or are otherwise having a hard time finding a raiding group to help them get the helm and shoulders from the watcher. For those poor souls, this set is a stepping stone to DN. But, if you are having a hard time getting into good VM groups, you are probably also having a hard time getting into good DD and 16th hall groups, where you will have to be successful in order to get the Iron coins for the 10 radiance helm and shoulder pieces if your intention is to skip VM and go right to DN.

The Radiance set from DN with +20 radience each, total 120 Radience. This set does not let you do anything you can't do with the Moria teal set, it's considerably harder to complete, and the stats are no better. It's only use is to make DN a little easier for people who raid there.

What's the fourth set? There are miscellaneous drops from various places that have some radiance on them. The Watcher drops some of these, but nobody wants them becasue they already have their teal sets. There are the iron coins from DD and 16th that get you +10 radiance helm and shoulders, which are a stepping stone to better gear. There is the Shire Bounders' Cap with 20 radiance and junk stats. I suppose you could use it if you were really desperate for the radiance.

Originally Posted by scottandjodie

I agree with that problem from your point of view, but the problem with the system from my point of view is the Rad being tied to the gear. I really dont care how we acquire rad, what I care about is that the +20 rad gear SUCKS compared to the original moria set if you look at it without rad. Same with the +1.5 rad set. To ME that is the problem. So, bind the rad to something else. Deeds, LI's , whatever. Drop coins from the instances but have them work towards a deed or something else...just don't use it to force me to choose between nerfing my toon (worse stats on higher rad gear) or skipping instances (keeping my good +10 rad set and NOT doing DN). Again, I undestand your point, but my issue is completely different.

My problem is the gear gating. There are other sets, namely the crafted armor, that have better stats. I'd like to use them but I don't because I want to raid. Once upon a time, the raid gear was the best in the game but it was essentially just a status symbol. Once you reached 50, you just bought some gear off the AH or got some respectable quest reward gear and you were raid ready. Now, you have to hit 60 and then grind grind grind your way to a radiance gear set before you can set foot into a raid. Some would say that that only matters for raiders. Well at end game, what else is there to do? LoTRO is not a PvP centric game, and raiding is the end game for PvE players.

Originally Posted by gildhur

How many times in how many different threads do we have to go over this?

They've considered deed-based radiance. They rejected it in favor of tangible radiance rewards.

They may have considered and rejected it, but they came to the wrong conclusion. All this radiance armor is just temporary. As soon as the next raid comes out all of our hard won radiance gear will be obsolete. With a deed or quest based system, if you had earned +80 radiance then you would have +80 radiance or better for the rest of your LoTRO career. That is a much more tangible and lasting reward.

Not only that, but a radiance deed per instance would be WORSE than what we have now. With Medallions you can run any part of any instance you want and work your way toward the gear or other rewards you want. With a deed gate, you would be FORCED to do every instance in HM to get anything. THAT is the problem, not the gear sets.

How could it be any worse? Currently you have grind 6 instances repeatedly in order to get all the radiance gear you need for end game raiding. You have some flexibility on which 6 you grind, but make no mistake, gear gating was devised to make us grind instances. Changing it to Deed gating would be much more flexible than the current system. They could make it so that just one deed was necessary to get all the radiance you need.


Though to be honest, my preference is to scrap all gear gating. All this radiance stuff is about is making us grind. It's just unimaginative game design.

[huntermaniac]

Wow, SGWB, nice post. I 100% agree with what you wrote in there, and it was very well thought out.

[gildhur]

Originally Posted by SGWB

They may have considered and rejected it, but they came to the wrong conclusion. All this radiance armor is just temporary. As soon as the next raid comes out all of our hard won radiance gear will be obsolete. With a deed or quest based system, if you had earned +80 radiance then you would have +80 radiance or better for the rest of your LoTRO career. That is a much more tangible and lasting reward.

A deed or quest system would still require you to do certain content. The difficulty of things like DD, 16th, HoC, arbitrary timers in things like GS, Forges, etc, is what makes the radiance gate impossible for some people. Combined with random rolls for a single coin and it was a nightmare.

Medallions fix it completely. You aren't FORCED to do EVERY instance like you would be with a deed requirement. You can do whichever instance(s) you prefer to whatever extent you prefer. I thought accessibity was the goal. Arbitrary HM requirements or full cluster quest objectives do not get you there. Medallions do.

You can only say it's a repetitive grind if you look at it one way. You could conceivably run every instance in the cluster start to finish probably fewer times than you would have to for everyone in the group to win a coin in the old system. If you want, run them like you use to run HMs before. No grind there.

But if you have a problem with certain instances or certain bosses, you have the OPTION to grind certain other content reptitively to make up the difference.

Medallions give you the opportunity to run the content the way you want it. Deeds and quests do not.

[SGWB]

Originally Posted by gildhur

A deed or quest system would still require you to do certain content. The difficulty of things like DD, 16th, HoC, arbitrary timers in things like GS, Forges, etc, is what makes the radiance gate impossible for some people. Combined with random rolls for a single coin and it was a nightmare.

Medallions fix it completely. You aren't FORCED to do EVERY instance like you would be with a deed requirement. You can do whichever instance(s) you prefer to whatever extent you prefer. I thought accessibity was the goal. Arbitrary HM requirements or full cluster quest objectives do not get you there. Medallions do.

You can only say it's a repetitive grind if you look at it one way. You could conceivably run every instance in the cluster start to finish probably fewer times than you would have to for everyone in the group to win a coin in the old system. If you want, run them like you use to run HMs before. No grind there.

But if you have a problem with certain instances or certain bosses, you have the OPTION to grind certain other content repetitively to make up the difference.

Medallions give you the opportunity to run the content the way you want it. Deeds and quests do not.

I'm not clear on what you mean by "medallions" and how you envision them working.

A quest or deed based system would not necessarily require you to do every instance. It would depend on how Turbine implemented it. There could be multiple quest or deed paths to getting the required radience. I would expect that with new content new quests and deeds would be be introduced that made the old quests and deeds unnecessary.

But I believe that we agree on the major point here. The current system of repetitively completing instances for a gear pieces needed to go on to to a raid is onerous. I don't mind gating raids behind completing other content. What I do mind is gating raids behind grinding content, no matter what mechanism is used.

[Harlinator]

Originally Posted by gildhur

A deed or quest system would still require you to do certain content. The difficulty of things like DD, 16th, HoC, arbitrary timers in things like GS, Forges, etc, is what makes the radiance gate impossible for some people. Combined with random rolls for a single coin and it was a nightmare.

Medallions fix it completely. You aren't FORCED to do EVERY instance like you would be with a deed requirement. You can do whichever instance(s) you prefer to whatever extent you prefer. I thought accessibity was the goal. Arbitrary HM requirements or full cluster quest objectives do not get you there. Medallions do.

You can only say it's a repetitive grind if you look at it one way. You could conceivably run every instance in the cluster start to finish probably fewer times than you would have to for everyone in the group to win a coin in the old system. If you want, run them like you use to run HMs before. No grind there.

But if you have a problem with certain instances or certain bosses, you have the OPTION to grind certain other content reptitively to make up the difference.

Medallions give you the opportunity to run the content the way you want it. Deeds and quests do not.

Isn't this basically how it's going to work in Mirkwood? Although I think everyone should have the opportunity *cough* of doing all the instances, I think this is a workable solution. However, it still requires a group which will still make the radiance gate difficult for some. If it was deed based, then it would be more solo-friendly. I'm not arguing for this, just saying that it would be more friendly towards players who play solo or w/ a very small group of friends. And even though I think Turbine should cater to this type of player as much as possible, they should take care not to dumb down the harder group content. This brings me to like the idea of having radiance not associated w/ specific armor pieces. That way, radiance can be applied to whatever armor you have or like. If someone can't get the DD piece, then they can still get a +10 helm of some sort.

Radiance should be easy to acquire, but good armor should still require a group effort. LIs don't require a group and decent jewelry can be found outside of difficult group content, but the best stuff does require a group. This is how it should be. A solo player simply can't expect to get the best gear while soloing. Of course, this is simply my opinion on that.

Harl