Discussion: Are there any LI changes on the horizon?

I have played many MMOs over the years (starting with AC1 10 years ago) and joined LOTRO 8 months ago. I love the game with one exception. The LI system is about the most frustrating aspect of any game I have ever experienced.

It is getting to the point where I want to give up. Are there changes on the horizon to make the system less exasperating?

The game management has said that they will review the LI system AFTER the next update, which is when the game will go free to play on all live servers. No announcements of what changes will be made or when they will be made, only a statement that the LI system will be reviewed after the launch of free to play.

I would think that Turbine knows they have to make a change.
I don't recall an outcry and consensus on a system flaw like this before.

Envoyé par VEEDOG

I would think that Turbine knows they have to make a change.
I don't recall an outcry and consensus on a system flaw like this before.

I think it is safe to say they know they must change something. Now its a matter of going through the processes to save some face.

Envoyé par GarethB

The game management has said that they will review the LI system AFTER the next update, which is when the game will go free to play on all live servers. No announcements of what changes will be made or when they will be made, only a statement that the LI system will be reviewed after the launch of free to play.

Yep. Actual quote from Kate Paiz is: In late 2010 and into 2011, we’re going to be working on improvements to the Item Advancement / Legendary Items system, to Radiance, and to the monster play system.

This is all the information on those subjects that we have been given at this point. Basically, we know changes are coming. What those entail and when we can expect them haven't been answered yet.

Envoyé par VEEDOG

I would think that Turbine knows they have to make a change.
I don't recall an outcry and consensus on a system flaw like this before.

Turbine definitely knows, and it's always good for the community on the forums to keep giving them reminders.

Envoyé par 4enzix

I think it is safe to say they know they must change something. Now its a matter of going through the processes to save some face.

I'm not sure "saving face" is their primary concern. They know they made some mistakes. They know what they've done well and haven't done well in terms of the LI system, now, it's just a matter of refining everything (again ) and listening to their playerbase to get certain changes implemented.

Envoyé par Nasty8

They know what they've done well and haven't done well in terms of the LI system, now, it's just a matter of refining everything (again ) and listening to their playerbase to get certain changes implemented.

They knew what they'd done well and hadn't done well before their first refinement of the LI system, after much discussion with their playerbase. If anything, IMHO, their "refinement" of the system only made the LI system worse and made their playerbase more displeased with the system than they were before.

Sorry, I have no confidence that they will adequately correct what is a badly designed -- and, apparently, poorly thought through, given its impact on crafting, itemization, and other aspects of the game -- game mechanic.

If they understand it is a huge problem, why wait so long to fix it? 2011 is a long time to wait on a fix.

Envoyé par Bradd

If they understand it is a huge problem, why wait so long to fix it? 2011 is a long time to wait on a fix.

I understand the frustration, and I am by no means sticking up for Turbine because I also think that they've done an extremely poor job with the implementation of the LI system. Let's just present the facts here:

1. We know they're going to give it an overhaul, likely a big one considering the enormous amount of feedback they've gotten on the subject.

2. The LI system is an integral and very large portion of the game. Consider that it is likely taking a ton of manpower and player feedback in beta (if the changes to the LI system are even in the beta build) to get things squared away. With all the other changes to the game that are coming (classic instance scaling, Enedwaith content, etc.), it's very possible that they are waiting until they are able to devote the proper time and resources to an overhaul like this one would need.

3. We don't exactly know when in 2011 the new systems will be released. It could be very early. It could be fairly late. Most prognosticators and assumptions have Turbine releasing their as-yet unofficial Isengard update sometime in the Spring, but again, those aren't facts, merely rumors. And who knows, the new LI system very possibly may not even be slated to release with Isengard.

Basically all I'm saying is this: it's not like the developers can just flick a wand and make all these changes overnight. The LI system is a very big part of LotRO, and changes to it are likely to be big as well. It's going to take a dedicated amount of time and resources to get things done (hopefully in the right way this time ), and at this point in time, it's probably safe to say that they are willing to wait it out and truly give it the attention it deserves starting sometime after Enedwaith releases in the fall.

Hopefully the only thing they change is allowing the LIs to constantly scale up with level. If they turn it into a cookie cutter Skirmish grind I'm going to be incredibly disappointed.

Envoyé par VEEDOG

I would think that Turbine knows they have to make a change.
I don't recall an outcry and consensus on a system flaw like this before.

Maybe not for a Turbine game - but SoE sure felt the burn with SWG-NGE.

Envoyé par Starrywisdom

Maybe not for a Turbine game - but SoE sure felt the burn with SWG-NGE.

These are Turbine forums. Why are we comparing a Sony mistake? We're talking about the LI system. Please read the OP and check your URL.

I predict a total overhaul that will render your last year of work and weapons totally useless

I just hope they get it right this time...

Envoyé par khanute

I predict a total overhaul that will render your last year of work and weapons totally useless

As long as they do it right and the overhaul makes the LI system legendary [my LI grows with me, no more deconning, what I earn I keep, etc], I'm fine with that. Useless one more time is much better than useless every level cap increase.

Envoyé par bastiat1

Hopefully the only thing they change is allowing the LIs to constantly scale up with level. If they turn it into a cookie cutter Skirmish grind I'm going to be incredibly disappointed.

Not gonna happen. Completely removing the market for weapons and class items is unsustainable.

Envoyé par khanute

I predict a total overhaul that will render your last year of work and weapons totally useless

I fear this also. The level cap bump to 65 sure did that for me (back to third agers for all toons.)

Envoyé par Nasty8

I'm not sure "saving face" is their primary concern. They know they made some mistakes. They know what they've done well and haven't done well in terms of the LI system, now, it's just a matter of refining everything (again ) and listening to their playerbase to get certain changes implemented.

I guess what I meant by saving face was proving they can do things in a manner that won't be picked apart while not admiting that their first attempt WAS a complete failure. Basically not pulling a IPHONE 4gesk sort of mistake

Envoyé par khanute

I predict a total overhaul that will render your last year of work and weapons totally useless

You know what, that's fine by me.... it was going to happen anyways at the next level cap increase so why not do it now and get it right for the future.

Developers put the LI system in to give end gamers something to grind out and keep busy. It gives the player something to increase when their level is capped. They were hoping it would give the same feeling as leveling your character. I did not hear everyone complaining when we were able to craft 2nd age weapons. I did not hear complaining about running bounties. Problem is it does not give you the same feeling of leveling your character and it takes forever to get the weapon you want and to level it. They did give tons more ixp on mirkwood quests which helped but if you did not have the LI you wanted mirwood ixp from quests was wasted. If you hate the LI system there are decent craft-able weapons you can use. I think three things would help everyones LI experience:
1. Allowed players to alter the appearance of LIs
2. Select the legacies they want
3. Have the LI level with the character through expansions.
4. Give better options for non LI weapons.

Nirion/Eoen of Landroval

Envoyé par EarMuffs

I did not hear complaining about running bounties.

I complained (as some of my old kinmates will attest) mercilessly about the bounties as I had just leveled two First Age champ weapons from the ground up mostly by grinding crafting instances over and over and over and over. The bounties were a sham and they were even more of a sham when they were rendered useless by the increase in the level cap, the addition of 61+ IXP runes and the consequent reduction of bounty rewards AFTER they were made useless.

Reducing the usefulness of the bounty quests by reducing the bounty item XP reward and not adding the new heritage runes to the rewards as selectable depending on which you wanted was just plain lose, lose, lose.

Wholly and totally unnecessary.

Envoyé par Celebria

Reducing the usefulness of the bounty quests by reducing the bounty item XP reward and not adding the new heritage runes to the rewards as selectable depending on which you wanted was just plain lose, lose, lose.

Wholly and totally unnecessary.

(I have no life today so ill add to this again)

The reason they reduced the rewards because it would still be worth it to pile up pre-mirkwood ixp and level up level 60 SA's and start a decon chain using dwarf tools and tablets that could render you a TON of relics.... you could essentially do a characters entire relic grind in a week or two

Envoyé par EarMuffs

Developers put the LI system in to give end gamers something to grind out and keep busy. It gives the player something to increase when their level is capped. They were hoping it would give the same feeling as leveling your character. I did not hear everyone complaining when we were able to craft 2nd age weapons. I did not hear complaining about running bounties. Problem is it does not give you the same feeling of leveling your character and it takes forever to get the weapon you want and to level it. They did give tons more ixp on mirkwood quests which helped but if you did not have the LI you wanted mirwood ixp from quests was wasted. If you hate the LI system there are decent craft-able weapons you can use. I think three things would help everyones LI experience:
1. Allowed players to alter the appearance of LIs
2. Select the legacies they want
3. Have the LI level with the character through expansions.
4. Give better options for non LI weapons.

Nirion/Eoen of Landroval

As a quick fix I'd be happy to go to the forge master, pick 5 legacies and let him create me a weapon with t5 capped legacies. I'm tempted to say t4, I really don't want to play the random generator anymore

Envoyé par JohnBlack

As a quick fix I'd be happy to go to the forge master, pick 5 legacies and let him create me a weapon with t5 capped legacies. I'm tempted to say t4, I really don't want to play the random generator anymore

I would be happy to buy that for $25 at the Turbine Store.

Envoyé par Celebria

Reducing the usefulness of the bounty quests by reducing the bounty item XP reward and not adding the new heritage runes to the rewards as selectable depending on which you wanted was just plain lose, lose, lose.

Wholly and totally unnecessary.

Wait a second here. If I recall correctly, Turbine did admit a disconnect between the group that creates rewards and those that create the quests which resulted in the ixp reward gap. In essence, they created the mousetrap and placed the cheese. The players (mice) found a way to work the mousetrap in a manner much faster than they thought (hunter and Capt ports) to burn through the bounties in about 20 minutes or so and stockpile millions of ixp for SoM.

The mouse trap designers saw what the mice were doing and created new runes for SoM (also an expansion) and lowered the amount of cheese we got.

Was the change annoying? yes....was it needed? also yes. Such is the cycle in a MMO.

Envoyé par Starrywisdom

Maybe not for a Turbine game - but SoE sure felt the burn with SWG-NGE.

There is a big difference here. Sony had existing systems. Changed them and the customer base went wild.

IMHO - This is part of the difficulty we are having with Turbine. Legendary Items are an existing system. That a portion of the customer base does not like. Very vocal about their dislike. As such has many similarities to the pre-NGE experience in SWG.

Turbine is concerned that they will spend a massive amount of resources on a complete redesign of Legendary Items. Be bit by the folks that liked the old system. Or are still mad because version 2.0 is not the changes they wanted.

Turbine made some incremental changes to "improve" the Legendary Item system based on customer feed back. The changes were not well received by some of the customers.

I doubt it will be very easy for Turbine to modify the system to meet:

1) Turbine's objectives for keeping us busy. This includes easy ways to add additional hours spent when the level cap goes up. Or new items are added. Turbine obviously does not want a feature is finished. Like Iron Garrison Guard reputation.

2) Meets the conflicting desires of the entire customer base. No matter what they do. Some customers are going to be upset.

I am looking forward to seeing what they can do. I have little confidence that that version 2.0 will receive a universal thumbs up from everyone. I hopefully it will be better.

Having an LI level with you is not sustainable, as mentioned before. You can't show up in Mordor with a weapon you got from the watcher.

More control over legacies - maybe even a weapon trait system like your skirmish soldier, would be feasible - you have to rank up the traits on a weapon - blue pills, reforges and quests to add traits, and for a cost you can retrait your weapon. When a new level cap is implemented with a new raid, you'll need to start the process with a better base weapon - that's how level driven content works. I don't mind the work, so long I have more control over the attributes of my weapon.

You need timesinks in a game, else, just buy the fast forward package to 2017 when we march to the Black Gate with Aragorn to help distracting Sauron's evil force while Frodo destroys the ring.

The solution is simple, and the fact that they have not put it in tells you what they think of their game.

-Allow the PLAYERS to pick what legacies they want on their items. Simple, right? Instead of this trash system that is in place now, one that every single player not only hates but dreads....let the player decide what legacies they want. Allow them to pick from the pool upon the initial forge and re-forges.

-Let the player choose the graphic of the weapon on the initial ID.

Now, seeing as anyone who has spent one minute with the current LI system would not only figure this out but totally agree with me, what do we have left?


The reason they choose to ignore the problem is because there is a total lack of content in this game at the high levels. They HAVE to have you grind out pathetic LI after pathetic LI because there is nothing else left to do in the game.

They dont want you to figure out there is little to no content once you hit 65, which of course, more people have already figured out....hence the drastic decline in players, which in turn led to the F2P model.

Envoyé par VEEDOG

These are Turbine forums. Why are we comparing a Sony mistake? We're talking about the LI system. Please read the OP and check your URL.

The OP compared his lotro experience/opinion to the "many MMO's" he has played and said LI system is "most frustrating aspect of any game" he had played.

Read the OP and check yourself.

I doubt it will be any better in the future. All these issues were brought up in beta for this last revision and they did not listen. I am in the camp that their "improvement" made the system actually worse.

It drives me crazy when people say you don't have to use an LI. They scale the game with these bonuses and dps in mind. Crafted weapons are not viable after around level 55. Sure, you could use one if you want to gimp your character.

What I would like to see them do:

- Get rid of LI
- Add\adjust crafted and drop weapons with relic slots
- Relics are quest rewards and drops
- Legacies become a new trait category

Envoyé par gildhur

Completely removing the market for weapons and class items is unsustainable.

Only for designers with no imagination.

Envoyé par Koboldfodder

The solution is simple, and the fact that they have not put it in tells you what they think of their game.

-Allow the PLAYERS to pick what legacies they want on their items. Simple, right? Instead of this trash system that is in place now, one that every single player not only hates but dreads....let the player decide what legacies they want. Allow them to pick from the pool upon the initial forge and re-forges.

-Let the player choose the graphic of the weapon on the initial ID.

Now, seeing as anyone who has spent one minute with the current LI system would not only figure this out but totally agree with me, what do we have left?


The reason they choose to ignore the problem is because there is a total lack of content in this game at the high levels. They HAVE to have you grind out pathetic LI after pathetic LI because there is nothing else left to do in the game.

They dont want you to figure out there is little to no content once you hit 65, which of course, more people have already figured out....hence the drastic decline in players, which in turn led to the F2P model.

While I agree with your suggestion that picking all the legacies would be nice right off the bat, I do have to disagree with your statement that EVERY player hates and dreads the system.

Honestly I could care less about the system as it is now, it took me a week of watching the AH to find the perfect weapon for myself. Would I like to see some changes to the system (like your suggestion to pick all legacies right away) sure, but it isn't going to determine whether I keep playing. I dont worry about end-game content keeping me busy for hours each night. I have other things to do like work, visit with friends and family, run errands, read a book, go to a park, watch a movie, etc. I don't expect LOTRO to be my sole source of entertainment.

Just wanted to chime in here, but Turbine actually made a wise decision in not allowing legacies to be chosen manually, with the Legendary Item system in its current state. Why? There appear to be two reasons:

1. There are too few legacies. If this is unchanged if the option to manually choose legacies is added, the Reward = Effort equation gets thrown out the window! "Cookie-cutter" builds would become more rampant.
2. There are currently some potentially strong "generic" legacies (ie. the "Healing and Motivational Skills Morale Healing" legacy for Minstrel legendary books). If these still remain if the option to manually choose legacies is added, they will become even more "must have".

If such an option is to be added while negating the negative side effects from it, the current legacy pools should be merged into one group, and then expanded to have many, many skill-specific legacies (while removing the generic ones). Then such a thing would be feasible. I have posted at length on this subject here.

My suggestion has been to keep a little bit of the randomness on ID, but to make it easier to get what you want at the same time. Say you ID your LI, and it ID's with 3 legacies, make it so you get 5 or 6 random legacies, and you can choose 3 of them. Then do the same thing if it ID's with 4 legacies, you get 6 or 7 random legacies and you can choose 4 of them. This makes it easier to get a good LI, but you still have the chance element to it.

Envoyé par jaymond

My suggestion has been to keep a little bit of the randomness on ID, but to make it easier to get what you want at the same time. Say you ID your LI, and it ID's with 3 legacies, make it so you get 5 or 6 random legacies, and you can choose 3 of them. Then do the same thing if it ID's with 4 legacies, you get 6 or 7 random legacies and you can choose 4 of them. This makes it easier to get a good LI, but you still have the chance element to it.

This is a much more "modest" fix than the "manually" selecting fix. Keeps the randomness down but not completely out. Throw in a better option for 2nd and 1st ages like tier availability: 3rd ages can get tiers 1-6 to start, 2nd ages get tiers 3-6 to start and 1st ages get tier 4-6 to start...

Rarer items get better benefits....not just better DPS. With a little more choice on the legacies and better tiers on higher age items, I would be satisfied.

p.s.
Maybe just keep the found ones random and any crafted ones more selectable? Would make crafting more viable again...

They need to scrap the entire current implementation and start over. They definitely need to get closer to the original marketing material which made LIs sound amazing (have your own Glamdring, it will level with you, etc.). There still needs to be a grind to keep us busy at end game, but it should be a grind with permanent benefits and there shouldn't be a lottery aspect.

Here's a taste of what I would do:
1 - You get one LI, not two; and you earn it as part of the entrance to Moria quest line.
2 - Your LI is permanent, you will never get a new LI and it cannot be destroyed.
3 - Your LI has the same level as your character.
4 - Scrap ALL of the current legacies and the whole ID/reforge process.
5 - Scrap the whole Item-XP mechanic.
6 - You make your LI more powerful by using it, the way you use it determines how it improves.
7 - You use a skill X number of times and you get tier 1 of that skill for your LI (similar to virtues).
8 - You crit a skill X number of times and your crit rating/percentage increases on your LI.
9 - You kill X number of a certain mob type and you get tier 1 of +damage to that mob type.
10 - Relics would all be craftable and crafting ingredients will drop instead of deconstructable relics and IXP runes.

The current Legendary system is utter ****...and pretty much everyone knows it.

Fix it? they need to junk it and start over. That would cost money and actually would involve an effort that I am not sure this development team is actually capable of.

Sorry, but after thousands of terrible ID's and dozens and dozens of bad craftings of both 60 and 65 legendaries, I feel it just needed to be said.

Sticking up for this system is like excusing the monkey for flinging excrement around...well because its just a monkey, rather than training the monkey to NOT do it.

I also feel that the LI system doesn't meet up to the standards that were set. The problem is the fact that they are supposed to level with us and be ever evolving but we currently just make them over and over until we find one we like. Once the level cap raises we have to do this again. I posted a option to changing the system which would most likely remove all progress we have has so far but I am willing to take that if it means the LI system is better.

Visit my link Here to view my idea.

Envoyé par Nasty8

Yep. Actual quote from Kate Paiz is: In late 2010 and into 2011, we’re going to be working on improvements to the Item Advancement / Legendary Items system, to Radiance, and to the monster play system.

If by "improvements" to radiance they meant "removing radiance" (which they just announced) I hope they don't plan on doing the same "improvements" witht he LI system. I kinda like my LIs......

Ditching the LI system would make their Instance designers happy im sure.

Imagine trying to pitch the difficulty level of mobs when you have to consider the potential healing output, DPS output and Tanking ability of characters with good LI's and poor LI's.

I want to see the Skirmish soldier equiv to LI's. Same panel and same leveling scheme. Never have to decon your LI, always get what you want (after working hard to get it) and the ability to re-task your item for different situations