I am not particularly familiar with BG's loot table, but just comparing BG to the last raid that LOTRO lived on for more than a year (the Rift) there are some pretty stark differences. With one Rift run, were just short of guaranteed two solid items outside of the barter tokens, mostly jewelry. A Balrog kill netted you two barter gems with the chance of a double drop and a Wig-Feld or Wanir-Men quality item. Is there even a BG equivalent?
The reward system is the same (unique gems for unique pieces, plus item drops on top). It's just that the consensus is that the gear isn't significantly better, so no one wants it, plus the content is significantly more frustrating and difficult, so the risk:reward ratio is even more skewed.
So there are massive balance issues on both sides. Some content is too hard for what it rewards (BG), some content is too easy for what it rewards (GS et al), and even some content is too easy that even though its rewards aren't that good it's so easy that it's still better (SH et al).
Elendilmir: Arda Shrugged - Crickhollow: The Colonists
So there are massive balance issues on both sides. Some content is too hard for what it rewards (BG), some content is too easy for what it rewards (GS et al), and even some content is too easy that even though its rewards aren't that good it's so easy that it's still better (SH et al).
Now you restated in a way that I can resolutely agree with...nicely put.
Last edited by DackRover; Oct 06 2010 at 03:11 PM.
If it was a 50/50 split, I would chalk the difference up to gamers having entitlement issues in general and some people having bad luck in PuGs... but that is a pretty stark contrast there... It is an issue that radiance complicated for some and masked for others. Combined with the decisions that made the combat system less dynamic rather than more dynamic... well, end game customization and game-play has suffered.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
I completely agree that the BG set should be better, but what you have touched upon is one of the fatal flaws of the Radiance system.
That's not a flaw of the radiance system, that's a flaw in itemization. As you said, the rad was "used as a crutch to create mediocre gear", but it didn't CAUSE the gear to be bad, improper itemization did. Likewise, the rad system wasn't the source of the grind either, but there was a conscious decision on the part of the developers to increase the grind in order to extend content.
The radiance system is taking the fall for much bigger design issues in-game, and removing the rad system from the game doesn't even begin to address those problems. Heck, that's not even going into how much the stat caps and stat diminishing returns limits what our gear can do for us.
/Would have rather seen the system implemented PROPERLY instead of going with something different with the same issues as before. The rad system could have had some real benefits if done properly...
Either way, I haven't gone through the whole thread, and I'm sure that this has been said over, and over, and over again. Having the devs say "we're doing away with rad!" isn't encouraging to me though...
Last edited by scrubmonkey; Oct 08 2010 at 01:10 PM.
That's not a flaw of the radiance system, that's a flaw in itemization. As you said, the rad was "used as a crutch to create mediocre gear", but it didn't CAUSE the gear to be bad, improper itemization did. Likewise, the rad system wasn't the source of the grind either, but there was a conscious decision on the part of the developers to increase the grind in order to extend content.
The radiance system is taking the fall for much bigger design issues in-game, and removing the rad system from the game doesn't even begin to address those problems. Heck, that's not even going into how much the stat caps and stat diminishing returns limits what our gear can do for us.
/Would have rather seen the system implemented PROPERLY instead of going with something different with the same issues as before. The rad system could have had some real benefits if done properly...
Either way, I haven't gone through the whole thread, and I'm sure that this has been said over, and over, and over again. Having the devs say "we're doing away with rad!" isn't encouraging to me though...
This is what some call "violent agreement." Yes, itemization has been a problem for some time now. What I pointed out was that Radiance was not necessarily a failure as far as a gating mechanism is concerned, even though it was far from ideal, but its primary failure is that it masked the severe itemization issues of the Mirkwood cluster. In addition to being a grindy boregasm that was not a completion gate, nor a skill gate, it covered up other issues and thus did more harm than good to the game.
Could Radiance have been converted to a system that was a completion gate and/or a skill gate rather than a grind gate? Sure, but the name itself is way behind in terms of player perception (it will forever be associated with grind) and aside from any gating involved, it is a Hope Redundant system. I have no problems with systems needing to be smoothed out as time goes on... I don't expect them to be perfect upon release, but Radiance was not quite good when it was introduced (for reasons already stated) and got progressively worse. If radiance was an equivalent system in my line of work, I would have ripped it out a year ago and started from scratch.
As I see it, you couldn't fully fix the itemization issues without fundamentally altering Radiance as a system and even then, you would still be stuck with a lot of the negative connotations of what Radiance means and meant in its various incarnations as a Hope redundant system. Removing Radiance entirely allows for unfettered work on itemization separate from gating concerns. You simply cannot have the gear be both the lure and the gate. If the gear is the gate and the gear is the lure then the gate is the lure and THAT logic is what has lead to the perception that radiance is just a gear treadmill.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
I think the real interesting debate on radiance is still to come.
The question is going to be what's going to replace it. I strongly suspect the reason they're removing radiance isn't because they felt it was a bad idea or that they suddenly love us. But it's because with FTP, in the future it can act as a double gate.
Lets say they add another zone in the 52-58 level range. Maybe someting that's considered a part of Eriador so it's included in a free content update. (or they split Moria up into quest packs with the VM cluser and DN as their own packs) But either way you'd have to buy quest packs. Lets also assume there's a raid that you'll be able to buy; similar to being able to buy Helegrod now.
If they set that up, and they leave radiance in for raiding, F2P'ers will howl because in order to play the new raid they just purchased, they'll also either have to buy Moria or at minimum Mirkwood so they can grind out the rad instances to get to BG to get to the minimum raidance to get into the next raid (six BG pieces at 30 rad per - 180 rad minimum, with the ability to sneak in at under minimum; 165 or 170). A double gate. You pay for the raid, but you also need to get the radiance gear to get in, and that is locked behind other quest and/or expansion packs.
Radiance was added for the sole reason of making us repeat content in order to see other content, which meant since we were all so busy with repeating, they didn't need to design new stuff as quickly. I don't think it's realistic to expect that fun little mechanic to disappear just because the term "radiance" does.
I think the real interesting debate on radiance is still to come.
The question is going to be what's going to replace it. I strongly suspect the reason they're removing radiance isn't because they felt it was a bad idea or that they suddenly love us.
this is my main concern about the future, but we have new leadership now and maybe a fresh approach. but in truth, I think the future is "already here" in what we can see with Helegrod and Great Barrows. content gated by completing other content. with the Great Barrow I think they've hit the spot just right, The Maze and Thadur being teachers for how to group in LotRO and Sambrog proving wether the people have actually learned somthing because frankly Sambrog is much easier then the other 2 parts if your group knows what it's doing, a group that failed to learn how to group and was lead through will likely have trouble with Sambrog despite his relative ease.
my hope is that future updates to "classic" instances will take this approach, Fornost (and maybe Garth Agarwen) can be used for teaching more advanced group mechanics by forcing groups to rely on CC or other slightly more advanced mechanics other then threat control taught by GB. also, with future clusters maybe bosses will exhibit features that will turn up in the raid bosses thus being an actual tool for prepairing people for the raid.
Where now is the lolcat and the derailer? Where is the troll that was trolling?
Where is the URL and the youtube, and the snappy retort flowing?
Where is the hand on the keyboard, and the LCD screen glowing?
They have passed like rain on the thread, like a wind in the post;
The days have gone down in the forums behind the cookys into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the nubs not searching,
Or behold the flowing derails from the Sea returning?
I have what I think is an important question for everyone.
Do you think it was a good idea to announce the eventual undisclosed removal of raidiance without giving any information about what will change when its gone?
Does it give you an incentive to get on tonight and do anything in particular in the game?
Does it give you the impression that Turbine has a good plan for the future and the endgame is going to be more fun when they are done?
From my perspective, nothing good has come from this announcement. I used to be running SG/SH on my latest alt to get armored up for DN/BG. Now I get on and do whatever some kinmate wants. There isnt anything specific for me I need to do. there is no incentive to get BG ready as there is nothing in BG worth looting. This listless mood has infected my kin. We havent been able to field a BG raid since F2P. About half a dozen consistent raiders have only been on a few times since F2P. We have been reduced to either picking up a few PuGs and doing Helegrod wings or breaking down into 6man and 3man content (like we do every night anyway).
Are other kins having similar problems or is my situation unique?
We've had a large drop in raid participation as well. It's also partly because of the change in BG looting but I won't get into that here. Even if a raid is boring most raiders will go in there week after week because since Moria launched, we've needed that raids gear to move onto the next one. Now the hamster wheel is stuck and I believe a lot of people just don't want to bother with it anymore and would rather wait and see what the next batch of content will bring.
It just seems like suicide for current level cap content when you go and announce that the only benefit the newest gear has will be worthless in future updates. I think it was the right decision but it should have been handled a bit better.
It just seems like suicide for current level cap content when you go and announce that the only benefit the newest gear has will be worthless in future updates. I think it was the right decision but it should have been handled a bit better.
Unfortunately I think it was handled this way on purpose. The announcement was designed to appease the many people unhappy with the existence of Radiance. It was designed to keep as many people that hate the system (see poll numbers) from leaving, to get people excited about a nebulous future where they can walk in to an as yet unreleased raid without the current restrictions.
Why would any information regarding replacement restrictions or the fate of the existing system (and associated gear) be given? It would dampen the enthusiasm generated by the vaguely awesome news that Radiance is going away.
7 Level 65s: Champ, Hunter, Guardian, Captain, RK, LM, Burglar All of them are sick of grinding Scrolls of Empowerment Awaiting change...
I have what I think is an important question for everyone.
Do you think it was a good idea to announce the eventual undisclosed removal of raidiance without giving any information about what will change when its gone?
Does it give you an incentive to get on tonight and do anything in particular in the game?
Does it give you the impression that Turbine has a good plan for the future and the endgame is going to be more fun when they are done?
From my perspective, nothing good has come from this announcement. I used to be running SG/SH on my latest alt to get armored up for DN/BG. Now I get on and do whatever some kinmate wants. There isnt anything specific for me I need to do. there is no incentive to get BG ready as there is nothing in BG worth looting. This listless mood has infected my kin. We havent been able to field a BG raid since F2P. About half a dozen consistent raiders have only been on a few times since F2P. We have been reduced to either picking up a few PuGs and doing Helegrod wings or breaking down into 6man and 3man content (like we do every night anyway).
Are other kins having similar problems or is my situation unique?
Yes...of course we are...intentional conduct designed to elicit that very response would likely be successful.
It was a premeditated release of info via a supposedly off-hand comment...followed by a month of silence despite forum implosion on the issue. Timed also with the essentially "surprise" "no-alt looting" change to BG (yeah yeah...Turtle mentioned...but whatever...this was stealth implementation). A two-pronged assault on the veteran raiders/players...do you think the new F2P "money" they are going after gives one wit about this issue at this time?
READ IT CLEARLY: THEY USE LESS SERVER RESOURCES IF LIFETIME MEMBERS FROM WHOM THEY WILL MAKE NO FURTHER MONEY QUIT THE GAME.
We are a drain on their crummy server resources that bring little or no new money into their coffers at this point (lifers anyway)...so, since they are pushing and have adjusted everything to cater to the newer and more casual players coming in...to "hook" them on the drug via the F2P gateway first "hit"...why do they need "us" anymore. They do not answer us or care for us...accept it...they are more than indifferent to us...they have more than a little bit of direct animus toward us reminding them through our play and posts, just how inadequate their server resources are. Add in the several months to a year it will take for the new "money" to even think about being half-as frustrated as we are about lack of content...and its a free ride for them with a heck of a lot less justifiable angst being thrown at them, if we would just move on.
Last edited by DackRover; Oct 09 2010 at 04:15 AM.
Reason: cuz i thought of more that pisses me off
Yes...of course we are...intentional conduct designed to elicit that very response would likely be successful.
It was a premeditated release of info [stuff]
READ IT CLEARLY: THEY USE LESS SERVER RESOURCES IF LIFETIME MEMBERS FROM WHOM THEY WILL MAKE NO FURTHER MONEY QUIT THE GAME.
[stuff]
Wow. I think you may give them too much credit. Based on past performance I was thinking that are just very disorganized and mildly incompetent (management, networking and QA seem to be the main problem areas).
Last edited by dhatcher1; Oct 11 2010 at 04:17 PM.
It's hard to convey tone through the forums. I wasn't trying to go for "violence", but wistfulness. Yes, there were a lot of things done wrong with the radiance system, but there were a couple things that it did very, very well... and it will take the a lot of redesigning to get us not quite the same functionality in these 2 areas. Namely:
Originally Posted by SaintBass
aside from any gating involved, it is a Hope Redundant system.
Sure it was, but that lead to the first thing it had going for it: BG was the first time that the Hope/Dread mechanic was incorporated into fights in any impactful way, and that was because the Rad allowed for the scalable challenge. You see, Hope/Dread make a LOT of sense in this game in terms of lore and it's one of the mechanics that are truly unique to this MMO, but they DON'T make sense in terms of boss battles, and that's where the mechanic should be the most prominent. I suppose we'll start seeing bigger hope tokens again or something, but that lacks the flexibility of the rad system... so they'll either have to fiddle with the mechanic a little more, or we'll just see another good idea gone to waste .
As an aside, I feel that part of the complaint about the hope/dread system is that it made fights a little more random... That could be fixed by doing away with (or reducing) the -skill level element to hope/dread.
Originally Posted by SaintBass
You simply cannot have the gear be both the lure and the gate. If the gear is the gate and the gear is the lure then the gate is the lure and THAT logic is what has lead to the perception that radiance is just a gear treadmill.
That's a noble idea, but it's simply not true.
Stats are intrinsic to the genre of MMOs, and at least part of your effectiveness is governed by a RNG.
Beyond level cap, all there is left to gain is stats, and people ask for that. A feeling of getting stronger is part of the fun for a lot of players.
There is a need for the devs to create content that is interesting and challenging for players at each stage of the endgame, so the concept of progression is created.
Every single MMO has the gear as both the lure and the gate! Underline, exclamation point. It's intrinsic to games that are RNG based. And we ask for it, oddly enough. Just look at how many posts throughout this thread that are asking for the Rad gear to be buffed to compensate for the loss of rad.
In a lot of ways the requests that we are making are a bit of a paradox. We want a feeling of progress without progression. We want our content to be fun/challenging, accessible, and rewarding, yet the reward often trivializes the fun/challenge, and the devs have to compensate by making future content more challenging and thereby reducing the accessibility to non-geared players. It's a hard balance to strike.
The radiance system was designed in part in order to strike that balance. With radiance giving raiders a feeling of progress in the raids without greatly affecting their performance in the rest of the game, they were able to flatten out the stats and make the challenge of open world and 6 man content (relatively) the same for well-geared characters and not-so-well geared characters. So, radiance was designed to reduce the disparity between players at different stages of progression! Underline, exclamation point again. Now, I'm not happy with the current itemization myself, but I CAN appreciate that there's no "frost badge effect" like there is in WoW, where lower tier endgame content that was once challenging is now rendered COMPLETELY TRIVIAL through the acquisition of gear alone. That is the second thing that the radiance system did well. I guess weather or not that philosophy toward design is a good one or not will be argued, but there was still some good that came of it.
Now, I agree with you that player perception is part of the reason that the rad system failed. There are some that feel that chasing after this one stat that doesn't make you "more OP" in the rest of the game is not enough of a feeling of progress for them. They might be right... but then the question to ask is: what is it that they want for that feeling of progress? Is it bigger stats? More of a feeling that those stats make a difference? How do you design content for these people that is accessible to people without the same level of gearing?
My take on that is that I could care less if the rad gear is buffed or not when they take away the rad. The sets were never the problem, but most of the other drops were. Most of the bling is vendor trash. I don't need the rewards for raiding to be significantly better than the non-raiding stuff, but it should ALWAYS be desirable, and THAT'S where they went wrong. Not a rad problem, but an itemization problem, and the rad covered that up a little bit. I agree with you.
Originally Posted by Snowlock
If they set that up, and they leave radiance in for raiding, F2P'ers will howl because in order to play the new raid they just purchased, they'll also either have to buy Moria or at minimum Mirkwood so they can grind out the rad instances to get to BG to get to the minimum raidance to get into the next raid (six BG pieces at 30 rad per - 180 rad minimum, with the ability to sneak in at under minimum; 165 or 170). A double gate. You pay for the raid, but you also need to get the radiance gear to get in, and that is locked behind other quest and/or expansion packs.
They don't just release the raids as packs by themselves. They are part of a bundle with the solo content. You buy MM, you get Hele as well. You buy Moria, you get the big ol' cave, the storyline, and the group content. If you never run the raids, you get your money's worth. They did it the same way over in DDO.
My guess on how they're gonna replace the rad system? They're gonna skirmify the raids. There will be tier 1, 2, 3 versions, just like DDO has casual/normal/hard/elite/epic. They're gonna itemize each tier, just like WoW has ILevels where the "casual" version of the raid drops "Uber staff of Pwnage ILevel 123", while the "harder" version drops "Uber staff of Pwnage ILevel 456". Most likely, they feel that the skirmish system has evolved enough to handle this, since they've spent major design time on it since Mirkwood release, and F2P release. This approach has a lot of problems of it's own, but it seems like the obvious direction to take at this point.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.
I hear they are removing radiance but not gloom. And giving radiance as a passive skill to wardens and RKs only.
not only that, but those classes increase the gloom affecting other classes.
Where now is the lolcat and the derailer? Where is the troll that was trolling?
Where is the URL and the youtube, and the snappy retort flowing?
Where is the hand on the keyboard, and the LCD screen glowing?
They have passed like rain on the thread, like a wind in the post;
The days have gone down in the forums behind the cookys into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the nubs not searching,
Or behold the flowing derails from the Sea returning?
No...no...a player's forum rep will increase his character's ability to do so. Get it right, people....sheesh!
oh come on, everyone knows that was changed in the last patch notes, Sapience confirmed this.
Where now is the lolcat and the derailer? Where is the troll that was trolling?
Where is the URL and the youtube, and the snappy retort flowing?
Where is the hand on the keyboard, and the LCD screen glowing?
They have passed like rain on the thread, like a wind in the post;
The days have gone down in the forums behind the cookys into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the nubs not searching,
Or behold the flowing derails from the Sea returning?
Let's hope it's true? So you want this game to die when people have absolutely no need to progress in the end game?
They better have a superior gating system in the works to replace radiance. Without being required to progress in end game content, there will be no end-game. Heck, there pretty much is no end game now as it is. All there is, is GS. Think about it. Why would you even participate in end-game if there were no challenges to complete? You would not. You would participate for one week, MAYBE a month and then quit once you are bored out of your mind and realize that leveling another class is also pointless considering there are no challenges past 65 other than reputation and deed grinds. And repeating GS again, only to have nothing else to do yet again.
Last edited by acidosmosis; Nov 04 2010 at 04:15 AM.
Let's hope it's true? So you want this game to die when people have absolutely no need to progress in the end game?
They better have a superior gating system in the works to replace radiance. Without being required to progress in end game content, there will be no end-game. Heck, there pretty much is no end game now as it is. All there is, is GS. Think about it. Why would you even participate in end-game if there were no challenges to complete? You would not. You would participate for one week, MAYBE a month and then quit once you are bored out of your mind and realize that leveling another class is also pointless considering there are no challenges past 65 other than reputation and deed grinds. And repeating GS again, only to have nothing else to do yet again.
While I don't really expect you to read 21 pages of this nonsense, try at least skimming the last 5 or so... all this has already been talked about ad nauseum.
-Radiance does not equal challenge.
-Grinding radiance makes people 'bored out of their mind'; repeating the same dull content makes people 'bored out of their mind'; the radiance system forces this to happen by its very nature.
-Gating is not required for a good end game. See The Rift.
-GS isn't a 'challenge'. GS isn't 'end game'. People run GS because it's fast and it's easy, it still has some reasonably nice loot drops, and it gets them a reasonably nice armour set - stat-wise not because of radiance. There are easier and faster ways to get more radiance than GS.
While I don't really expect you to read 21 pages of this nonsense, try at least skimming the last 5 or so... all this has already been talked about ad nauseum.
-Radiance does not equal challenge.
-Grinding radiance makes people 'bored out of their mind'; repeating the same dull content makes people 'bored out of their mind'; the radiance system forces this to happen by its very nature.
-Gating is not required for a good end game. See The Rift.
-GS isn't a 'challenge'. GS isn't 'end game'. People run GS because it's fast and it's easy, it still has some reasonably nice loot drops, and it gets them a reasonably nice armour set - stat-wise not because of radiance. There are easier and faster ways to get more radiance than GS.
That is an asinine response. So, end game is good because of one instance? *rolls eyes*
There has to be some way to force people into a progression. Otherwise they are just going to skip as much content as possible. And that makes for all sorts of problems.
Whether it be radiance or just the quality of gear. It has to be done some way or another.
I sure as heck am NOT going to play this game if I only get to participate in one or two instances because people don't run anything but that one instance or two. I'm sure as **** not about to do two instances out of the entire list of end game instances and then be stuck with nothing to do except PVP in lag hell (aka Ettenmoors).
As far as gear goes. Stats need a serious overhaul. Simply removing radiance will piss me off. More than that needs to be done. Far more.
Last edited by acidosmosis; Nov 07 2010 at 06:13 PM.
That is an asinine response. So, end game is good because of one instance? *rolls eyes*
He isnt saying that at all. Endgame has sucked in Lotro since Moria's release. Pre moria we had the Rift as a primary difficult raid, Carn Dum as a fairly difficult multi-session instance. Urugarth and the 3 annuminas instances as fairly difficult single session instances, a few battle instance (like skirmishes) and occasionally Helegrod. All had desireable pieces of endgame gear. Thats why he mentions "See the Rift".
There has to be some way to force people into a progression. Otherwise they are just going to skip as much content as possible. And that makes for all sorts of problems.
Whether it be radiance or just the quality of gear. It has to be done some way or another.
Not really. Pre-Moria as soon as you hit level cap you could buy crit crafted gear or start into annuminas/BG/CD for gear drops. Once you hit a reasonable morale target you could get into a Rift group that would at least beat the first few bosses for a chance at a couple pieces of armor and other endgame gear.
I sure as heck am NOT going to play this game if I only get to participate in one or two instances because people don't run anything but that one instance or two. I'm sure as **** not about to do two instances out of the entire list of end game instances
Adding Raidiance (which happened with the Moria release) has changed things from " hit level cap then enjoy a variety of endgame instances" to "hit level cap, grind one or two instances for raidiance armor then do one raid".
They are trying to get back to endgame variety with the long overdue "classic instance" overhauls. The problem is with barter coins being one per instance they are encouraging running only the shortest and easiest, just like they did with raidiance. The problem is the rewards are broken. There is no excuse for an easy 10-15 minute instance like Sword Halls to give the same primary rewards as tougher, longer instances like Warg Pens and the Dungeon. The reward needs to be commensurate with the length and difficulty of the instance, which brings us to your next last point.
As far as gear goes. Stats need a serious overhaul.
Everyone here agrees with that.
(Except maybe Gildhur the cheerleader ).
Last edited by dhatcher1; Nov 09 2010 at 05:50 PM.
They should have stuck with the system with the lesser elf-stones. You get certain medallions for x instance and then you use those to get certain radiance. Then players are required to go through a variety of content before they hit end-game.
They should have stuck with the system with the lesser elf-stones. You get certain medallions for x instance and then you use those to get certain radiance. Then players are required to go through a variety of content before they hit end-game.
I Agree to a point. SOA was boring buying pretty much the best gear has never been my thing. As for the rift 90% of the people never even seen the rift pre moria. Kind of like BG is still a year later gating or no gating. But adding a luck factor in loot also ticks some people off. In my opinion moria was the most fun I had in this game. No achievement felt the same than earning my 60 rad legit (without the DD BUG) and seeing the watcher for the first time. But I hated having to run 16th hall over and over again for some shoulders and the guy who replaced the bored to death LD hunter at the final boss gets the token ;(
I think Turbine Needs a system that requires people to run different challenging instances to get different coins that everyone gets for completing the instance. I am sure this has been mentioned already.
I Agree to a point. SOA was boring buying pretty much the best gear has never been my thing. As for the rift 90% of the people never even seen the rift pre moria. Kind of like BG is still a year later gating or no gating. But adding a luck factor in loot also ticks some people off. In my opinion moria was the most fun I had in this game. No achievement felt the same than earning my 60 rad legit (without the DD BUG) and seeing the watcher for the first time. But I hated having to run 16th hall over and over again for some shoulders and the guy who replaced the bored to death LD hunter at the final boss gets the token ;(
I think Turbine Needs a system that requires people to run different challenging instances to get different coins that everyone gets for completing the instance. I am sure this has been mentioned already.
You mean the system that was in place until people complained they couldn't get certain classes in to do those instances?
All the major systems introduced with moria (Radiance / legendaries / instance grindfests for the same) are a bad joke and needed to be rethought
You mean the system that was in place until people complained they couldn't get certain classes in to do those instances?
People will always complain. Getting the "certain" classes together would not have been as much of an issue if it wasn't for the radiance gate. When a player is forced to grind out gear to progress they will do it. Win for turbine. Ahhh, but, once said player has his gear he is most likely going to avoid that same content he just grinded though 100+ times like the plague. What happens? Anyone who is lagging in the leveling process gets stuck not having people to group with. IE, the problem you mentioned. Players lose and Turbine wins with radiance gating.
Originally Posted by Shaele
All the major systems introduced with moria (Radiance / legendaries / instance grindfests for the same) are a bad joke and needed to be rethought
I'd agree with you on radiance, but legendaries not so much. There needs to be some sort of alternate advancement for level capped players to work for, legendaries fill this role pretty well. The problem with legendaries isn't so much the grind but the lottery associated with them. Heck, Id be okay with making LI leveling 50X slower and capping the amount of EXP you could earn in a day for them, but give the payers A LOT more control on what legacies they get.
Good ridance to radiance!
"...FF is still the best server period, its like the Texas of Lotro"-Bace
Yepyep, radiance gated raids was never really an issue, just that it totally messed up itemization to put it on the gear. Should be a passive on the character - virtue would be fine since then it could be unslotted in favor of something else when not needed.
I've long felt that radiance should be a special trait that is automatically and always slotted in its own slot. It should reflect the favor of the Valar, earned through actions in service of the Free Peoples. I see Radiance as significantly different from virtues, which basically enhance what is already there; Radiance is adding something, the blessings of Aman.
Simply put, allow us to advance the trait by killing unique bosses around the world. Not solely raid bosses, but also instance bosses, world rares, quest bosses, etc. That encourages players to actually do all the content in game if they want to max out their chars. There'd actually be good reason to hit GA and GB and Fornost even if you're already at the level cap.
Advantages:
* There's a nice long grind in there to keep the devs happy
* Old content that's often ignored will be meaningful again
* Players can advance as they go, growing in radiance organically through normal gameplay; OR they can set out to maximize Radiance delibeately
There could even be multiple reward levels for some or all bosses. E.g. defeat Ivar when he's deep grey to the highest level fellowship member and earn 1 radiance. Defeat Ivar when he's green to white difficulty to the highest level fellowship member and earn 2 radiance. Defeat Ivar when he's higher level than anyone in the fellowship for 3 radiance.
There has to be some way to force people into a progression. Otherwise they are just going to skip as much content as possible. And that makes for all sorts of problems.
That's a fairly massive assumption and not one with which I agree. In SoA we were not forced into a progression; instead we were offered "comparable incomparables", which led to a large degree of freedom in how everyone approached the gameplay. Perhaps you're only familiar with games with focus on content gating and so you assume incorrectly that this is the only possible way games can be designed; but we've seen another approach here, and it worked much better than content gating. LotRO truly excels when it takes off the guiderails and lets us do our own thing.
If people are skipping content, my response isn't to force them to go where they don't want to go. Rather, I'd ask why people are skipping the content, and how that content might be improved to make it more appealing.
That's a fairly massive assumption and not one with which I agree. In SoA we were not forced into a progression; instead we were offered "comparable incomparables", which led to a large degree of freedom in how everyone approached the gameplay. Perhaps you're only familiar with games with focus on content gating and so you assume incorrectly that this is the only possible way games can be designed; but we've seen another approach here, and it worked much better than content gating. LotRO truly excels when it takes off the guiderails and lets us do our own thing.
If people are skipping content, my response isn't to force them to go where they don't want to go. Rather, I'd ask why people are skipping the content, and how that content might be improved to make it more appealing.
The reason people weren't skipping content in SoA is because they had no content to skip, SoA was the first level cap and there weren't a ton of instances at lvl 40 and below, just really one per 10 levels except at level 10. Really if the idea of radiance is progression, they should have made the first radiance achieved through running SoA instances, and then onto moria etc.
What I believe now is that there should not be forced progression but some sort of progression, and it should definitely not be based on armor. It should just be deed-based like the new helegrod and GB are to gate a raid/final instance in a cluster. I'm not sure if clusters should be connected to each other somehow- that was "sortave" the idea with radiance, until they made it so you can get radiance in a cluster and not need to have radiance from the other cluster to do so- this was done in book 8 even when radiance was still basically new. Maybe they can add incentive to do previous clusters by adding a higher-chance-of-better-loot passive bonus for completing the basic deeds of an instance (not hardmode). The latest cluster before a new cluster would have the bonus, maybe 10%, for that new cluster, so right now it would be Dol Guldur for the new stuff coming out, then the DN Moria cluster for BG, then the Watcher Moria cluster for the DN Moria cluster, etc for SoA.
People won't have any problems running instances when they are given desirable rewards. GS has already been mentioned because it still has some favorable drops.
A simple way to gate raid progression is enrage timers for a boss or two. IE if you don't have enough DPS, you won't really be able to kill it. A bit like how the gauntlet functions now - if you have incredibly low dps, it's gonna be rough and take quite a bit of time.
And let's be honest, people loved the Rift because there was a chance for some awesome loot to drop on a majority of the bosses, and especially the last boss. The Rift cannot even compare with the difficultly level of BG (and remember, rad requirements != difficult).
The new raid will be inherently desirable because of first age weapons. Sprinkle some nice cloaks, jewelry, and offhand weapons across the whole instance cluster and you now have endgame content that people want to run over and over. Mirkwood really showcased how strong Turbine can be with instance design and boss fights, as well as what gives them strong replay value: loot.
Regarding the new sets, they won't be totally useless... take my hunter, helegrod thing is best thing ever.... but for my warden? MEH... however that yummy Moria set, ya know, the one you can trade for moria tokens, Spear Shaker... GOOD bonuses with the threat transfer and all.
At least for once we can pick out our armor depending on our stat build and not the ONE radiance stat.
"Sam, I'm scared"
"Don't worry Mr. Frodo, I'll lend you my 25 radiance shirt"
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH HHH
Imagine Tolkien adding two books to the LOTR trilogy consisting only of the Fellowship getting better armor so they don't $#!% their pants the second they enter Mordor.
They better come up with a damn good alternative gating method or the whole removal will just turn into an epic fail with a bunch of poorly geared/traited players screaming for nerfs because it's too hard to do a lvl 65 raid wearing the Moria quest rewards as armour/jewellery and weapons especially when you can't just spam buttons to win.
They better come up with a damn good alternative gating method or the whole removal will just turn into an epic fail with a bunch of poorly geared/traited players screaming for nerfs because it's too hard to do a lvl 65 raid wearing the Moria quest rewards as armour/jewellery and weapons especially when you can't just spam buttons to win.
There will no other gate. It has been stated by Sapience that radiance will be removed and there will be no replacement.
The other point you make is a very valid one and something me and others have been arguing about for months/years. But I don't want to get yet another infraction for stating the obvious.
They better come up with a damn good alternative gating method or the whole removal will just turn into an epic fail with a bunch of poorly geared/traited players screaming for nerfs because it's too hard to do a lvl 65 raid wearing the Moria quest rewards as armour/jewellery and weapons especially when you can't just spam buttons to win.
I don't think running GS ad nauseum (especially with the overwhelming majority just exploit it) prepares you for the Watcher or DN, just like running Sword Halls till your face has indentations of your keyboard signifies any level of preparedness for BG.
No thank you to active gating it forces developers to become unoriginal and complacent with game designs. Take those chains off let them get back to instance design like old BG, CD, URU, old Annuminas (new is too easy), and of course the Rift. I would much rather prefer passive accomplishment/deed based gating systems like Volume 1 Book 6 for the Dread line(ahh the hilarity when people are on auto-follow), new GB and new Helegrod gating.
If Middle Earth doesn't take a moment to understand why Sauron was able to draw tens of thousands of disenfranchised individuals to his cause, then they're destined to fight the same war all over again...as soon as the next Sauron shows up.
They better come up with a damn good alternative gating method or the whole removal will just turn into an epic fail with a bunch of poorly geared/traited players screaming for nerfs because it's too hard to do a lvl 65 raid wearing the Moria quest rewards as armour/jewellery and weapons especially when you can't just spam buttons to win.
The ./inspect method of helping your raid mates be prepared works just fine. It's not that hard to make sure people are prepared.
We used to run Rift and Hele... long before there was any "gear gating" and having toons that were ready for the task was still an issue.
Eoblod (r9 Champ) / Finothir (r8 Guard) / Dinoth (r7 Hunt) / Didnt (r7 LM)
Denothir (r6 Capt) / Dinethir (r6 Burg) / Imrathion (r4 RK) / Blizothir (r4 Wrd)
Victuh (r5 Rvr)
~ Landroval ~
"Champions are based on Gimli. Gimli did not use a shield. Champions will not use shields." ~ Orion
It's not my raids I'm worried about but rather those raids we'll see popping up with most people woefully under-geared who'll wipe and a good amount of them will then complain content needs to be nerfed which knowing Turbine they'll do. It's either that or the content will be made facerollingly easy right off the bat.
The ./inspect method of helping your raid mates be prepared works just fine. It's not that hard to make sure people are prepared.
We used to run Rift and Hele... long before there was any "gear gating" and having toons that were ready for the task was still an issue.
Yup, that's when we used to have consider one's play style and how it worked with the group. We also had to figure in traits into that. If anything its easy mode now with the trait sets and bonuses as they are. People are being told oh you are captain we don't want you in the middle of the ruckus just sit in the back and spam Words of Courage and Muster Courage...god forbid you use your other skills to contribute to trigger an extra Rallying Cry, To Arms, or War Cry on the group for a few extra buffs.
If Middle Earth doesn't take a moment to understand why Sauron was able to draw tens of thousands of disenfranchised individuals to his cause, then they're destined to fight the same war all over again...as soon as the next Sauron shows up.
Counter of Stairs Online status:
Reputation:
Originally Posted by SaintBass
Senior Member Online status:
Grand Member Online status:
Member Online status:
Poster of Note Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
.
Member Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
).
Senior Member Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
Grand Member Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
Reputation:
Counter of Stairs Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
Grand Member Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
Senior Member Online status:
Reply With Quote
Posting Permissions
