Thread: Dev Diary Feedback: Tasks

Originally Posted by Orion

This is a prime example of something implemented for our Free Players. The tasks are available to anyone and everyone,

At last, the truth comes out, confirming what we've suspected all along.

Given: Tasks are available to anyone and everyone
Given: Tasks are only available to players level 50 and below
Conclusion: anyone and everyone to turbine are only players level 50 and below, those who are more likely to spend money in the turbine store.
Conclusion: Turbine considers level 51+ players to be no one, because they're less likely to buy things from the turbine store.

Is it any wonder that the patch includes exactly zero content for the end-game? Instead of fixing the dreadfully buggy raids that have been out for over a year, or adding the "multiple raid clusters" we were promised in 2010, we get an entire freaking region dedicated to festival silliness, and a 4th revamp of the Ered Luin starter instance.

For the love of Eru, what is wrong with you people?

Originally Posted by Orion

As to why there are level restrictions: Imagine a world where all the high level players wanted to go back an get these deeds, and now imagine that you are a player who is working through the game at your own pace. The potential devastation to the fauna and the lack of fun that would be present to all those who are just starting to enjoy the game world who were using these quests as a way to remain engaged with the world.

Imagine a world where everybody could pick up any task, no matter the level "bracket", and instead of turning in trophies that drop off mobs in the level range the tasks were created for, higher level players have to turn in the same type of trophy but from a mob in that player's level range.

The potential of not pissing off higher level players would be great!

Originally Posted by gildhur

They have to do that up to 50 times (10 ranks of 5 virtues) PER CHARACTER. But these Tasks would only have to be done once per player.

I had to laugh when I saw this. My main has all 20 virtues at 10+, and is kindred with all factions. Only a completionist understands a completionists mind. That said, I agree with Gildhur's posts. (Well, the ones in this thread anyway :-))

The least you could do if you are spending all this time and energy into trying to scurry us along is implment the much requested XP kill switch for those of us that don't want to be scurried by stuff like this.

Originally Posted by Orion

As to why there are level restrictions: Imagine a world where all the high level players wanted to go back an get these deeds, and now imagine that you are a player who is working through the game at your own pace. The potential devastation to the fauna and the lack of fun that would be present to all those who are just starting to enjoy the game world who were using these quests as a way to remain engaged with the world. As these are made, primarily, for free players and characters who are leveling we wanted to make certain that the experience was as constrained and forgiving, to those players, as possible. By opening up tasks (8-50) to all players we would likely be inviting an experience that would be less than ideal for the target audience.

This makes sense and shows a lot of thought was put into in. I appreciate that you guys tried to prevent the situation where you'd have a horde of level 65s rolling devastation throughout Ered Luin (for example) in order to complete their task deeds.

However, that doesn't explain why we couldn't get level 50+ tasks in areas like Enedwaith, Moria, and Mirkwood. The fact that characters past the early 50s are being shut out and have no way of starting these deeds is terrible. That's not the way LoTRO has ever operated before.

Also, I echo the sentiment that rolling out new features as "Beta" Previews is lame, please stop it. We understand that bugs exist and things don't work sometimes, but attaching the word "Beta" to them in order to legitimize the fact that they might not work properly feels unprofessional. If the feature is still in "Beta" stages then it shouldn't be released to your Live servers. Either you think it is ready to go live or it isn't, make up your mind.

Lets look at Turbine's history of releasing new "systems" in LOTRO:

1. PvMP. Broken since Volume I, Book 12. Took over a year to get an upgrade to somewhat useable gear, if you're level 58, but then again, it's a level 65 zone. Other than that, it has been largely ignored since Mines of Moria which was released over TWO years ago.

2. Housing. Broken since 2007. No updates whatsoever since then.

3. Hobbies. One hobby introduced two and a half years ago, nothing since.

4. Legendary Items. Need I say more?

5. A wallet...that only holds a few things.

6. Tasks that will be "in beta".

I'll have to agree with Gildhur here (GASP!), stop releasing new "systems" to the game. Really. I mean, they are going to be ignored just like all of the other stuff that has been introduced in the past.

I really think Turbine needs to STOP any new development (especially on new systems), step back and take a look at what's already in place, FIX what's broken, and then, maybe then, move forward on the "new systems".

If you keep introducing more systems, this will only mean that more things will be broken and, based on the development history of this game and using the aforementioned as examples, will NEVER be fixed.

Oh, and I noticed yet another store button on the quest panel. So, we're up to four new buttons so far for the update. I think someone mentioned that everyone should take a drink since the new button was discovered. I would say that it would make an interesting drinking game, to take a swig every time a new store button was found, but then everyone would be trashed in a relatively short amount of time.

Originally Posted by FormulaTroll

I don't understand the use of the term "infinitely repeatable" here. Nothing about these seems infinite...What nonsensical definition of "Infinite" are we adhereing to here?

I believe this is intended to distinguish them from repeatable quests that can be performed a limited number of times, such as those that grant a choice of optional crafting ingredients as rewards.

Another Turbine system that's way more complex than it needs to be and yet provides more frustration than fun.

It seems to me that there once might have been a good idea here once, but the arcane restrictions and reset tokens give the impression that you spent too much time worrying about preventing people from exploiting it, and not enough time thinking about how to enhance the user experience.

Like Elderban, Gildhur and others have said, they need to address the current issues they have and stop creating more systems to be fixed at a later date of never going to happen. Why keep going back and re-doing the starter areas? I played through the new starter elf quest line, it was ok, nothing earth shattering. The last new area that was added to the game just seemed like it's lost the feel of the other areas of the game. Out there I look off into the distance now and I'll see the green grass then there will be these slightly darker areas in the middle of the day with a perfect straight line on the edge. The other sections of the game don't do that, is this what we have to look forward to in the future? Hopefully Turbine will step back, try to get the game back on track, because right now I feel that its a former shadow of what it was and it's losing potential which each update.

Originally Posted by Elderban

Lets look at Turbine's history of releasing new "systems" in LOTRO:

1. PvMP. Broken since Volume I, Book 12. Took over a year to get an upgrade to somewhat useable gear, if you're level 58, but then again, it's a level 65 zone. Other than that, it has been largely ignored since Mines of Moria which was released over TWO years ago.

2. Housing. Broken since 2007. No updates whatsoever since then.

3. Hobbies. One hobby introduced two and a half years ago, nothing since.

4. Legendary Items. Need I say more?

5. A wallet...that only holds a few things.

6. Tasks that will be "in beta".

You forgot:

7.

Originally Posted by jayssen

I don't think people would complain if there were some other way of getting the rewards that the tasks provide, if the tasks provided no other rewards than XP and a deed that offered no titles or item rewards, or if they had some choice in the matter. Comparing Tasks to the poaching in Lothlorien quests or the Enedwaith reputation quests is comparing apples to oranges.

You may have mis-understood me here, I agree that there should be some way to get the rewards, in-game, other that the TP store. My comparison to the Lothlorian/Enedwaith choice quests was meant to compare to the people who want to be able to do every single quest there is. It was probably a bad comparison. There will always be quests that a character can't do. Class quests come to mind. The people complaining about not being able to do the tasks remind me of the people who complained when the crafting quests changed from everyone being able to do them to only having them available after you choose a profession, and only for your chosen profession.

Don't get me wrong, I agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be a way for 50+ to be able to reap the new rewards. Adding 50+ tasks would do it for me.

Well, I can say that I won't be making any use of this system (unless the deed rewards are exceptionally attractive). The last thing I want is to level even faster in this game. Heck, I only do quests because of the Virtue rewards. I'd skip most of those (and all the unwanted XP) if they weren't the most efficient way to get things like Innocence.

Also, I'm rather surprised at the low levels at which these tasks start. Level 8? Why bother? Level 9 is only ten minutes of questing away. I could see some logic in starting around 15; after all, it takes almost an hour per level at that point if you're completing slayer deeds and exploration deeds. I'm sure at least some of the more impatient players will have a use for this feature by the time they get to Bree. Of course, these are the same impatient players who will probably regret using all those skins and such for tasks when they hit level 20 and realize they don't have the 500 silver required to buy a mount....

(FWIW, over the last week I leveled a brand new Hobbit Guardian from 1 to 20. It took about two hours to get through the Introduction and get to level 8. It took about twelve more hours to get to level 15 and the first class quest. This includes doing the interminable postal delivery quest chain, completing all the Shire slayer deeds except for Brigands and Harvest-flies, and leveling both Prospector and Forester to Journeyman. Levels 15 to 18 took about four hours and included completing the Guardian class quest, finishing up the last two deeds in the Shire, and puttering around Buckland. Levels 18 to 20 took almost ten hours, attributable to A. my free horse finally expiring, B. a couple of round trips between Buckland and Bree for the epic quest chain, and C. a ridiculous amount of time spent traipsing around the Old Forest. Had I skipped the epic quest and the Old Forest exploration, I suspect this time would have been cut in half.

So, at the end of approximately 27 hours of not-particularly-efficient gameplay, the character was level 20, with a little under 450 silver after repairs and skill purchases. In other words, still a bit short of buying a pony. Using trophies for tasks instead of cash would have resulted in shaving a few hours off his /played time, at the expense of being much, much farther from purchasing a mount. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine whether the sort of person who wants to level faster will be happy with the trade-off when they realize it's going to take them a lot longer than they thought to get that first mount....)

Originally Posted by Nepenthea

I've a question:

Can't the trophy items being used for task turn-ins be farmed by any character (specifically, a higher level character), and handed over to another character (who has those tasks) to use those trophies for the task turn-ins?

If so, then using these regular drop trophies as turn-in items will not prevent folks higher level than the intended level range from plowing through an area to obtain these trophies to give to lower level alts to complete their tasks (or, for instance, farming them solely to sell for exorbitant prices to other players).

If this is the case, then this seems counter to the intent of the Task System being created for 'on-level' characters.

Perhaps, instead of using common, unbound, regular-loot trophy drops, create bound quest-item-type-drops which only the player who has the task will be able to obtain (and it won't clog up their inventory, either). I know this is not what was intended with the "You’ll now need to decide whether to save these for use in Tasks or continue to sell them to vendors for coin." design, however, there seem to be an awful lot of potential unpleasantries looming if common drop trophy drops are used. Perhaps revisit this part of the design, please?

Yeah, that sounds like it could be an issue.

I sure hope they get Orion back to working on actual content soon....

Okay, I understand that devs are afraid that a horde of lvl 65's are going to kill all fauna of Ered Luin, Shire and Breeland. But I really doubt that they would stay grinding those tasks when they have done them once or twice.

Some of us are completionists. It's a tease to see 250 new quests added that you can't complete, because you happen to be too high level. And personally I find it a bit unfair too, that devs want to give things out to FREE players but not for us old, faithful players.

I have 8 level 65's and one lvl 61 at the moment, and that means NONE of my characters can complete ANY of those new deeds, and that makes me sad. Sucks to be me I guess

So, a suggestion: maybe you could change that task system so that EVERY player can complete each task at least once, but you can repeat them only if you are at suitable level. That way all players could complete each task at least once, regardless of their level.

Originally Posted by john_anthony

so you're the self-appointed decider of what's interesting for the entire game's population? gotcha.

No, but there are some nice things about tasks for F2P. The main hate over tasks is that max level players who are completionists can't do them. So if they had no associated deeds then then there'd be nothing to complain about.

As a level-capped non-LM/RK, what will this update do for me?

When the patch was first announced, the answer to that question was "there's obviously more on the way, just shut up and wait". When it was confirmed that there was no end-game content, the answer became "we get tasks". When the tasks weren't available above level 50 on BR, the answer became "the tasks are bugged, just shut up and wait". Now that the tasks are confirmed to be unavailable to level-capped players (and likely will remain so for the foreseeable future), what's the new answer?

After 49 weeks with no new end-game content, I'm not sure the wisest course of action is to lock a major subset of the player base out of new features that was supposed to be for "everyone".

I'm not asking for five new 24-man raids each month, I'm just asking for an answer to this one simple question: With no active alts, what reason is there for me not to just log out until the next content-based update?

Wow,

You *kept* the upward level restrictions?

I guess ignoring the concerns of many of the Bullroarer testers is a good strategy over at the dev team.


So basically this new game concept in Lotro is;
Tough luck long time players! You will from now on never be able to get all the deeds/titles/rewards.

Utterly tragic that you did not listen to the concerns posted about this.

What is the reason for this limit?
Why have you decided that all players who like to do/complete/finish everything, now long can do so on their main character?

It this a ploy to get us to buy more character slots and start all over?
(If so, talk about greedy money grabbing blah blah blah).

Ironically, I might add... the free players that started playing when f2p went live, has already out leveled this content, so even to them this is a worthless addition to the game.

So cheers, and here is to hoping that the next update (after this one) will have some actual content and not just some **** that leaves us with an incomplete / unfinished / (worthless?) main character.

Tasks provide limited experience rewards and will sometimes grant reputation rewards

Note also, if quests give reputation then there is another GOOD reason why the Tasks should not be level capped.

I find it a bit backwards and ironic that you would essentially lock any content from players who paid by placing a level restriction on quests. I can understand the fact that it's designed for F2P'ers but that doesn't mean you need to restrict it level wise. My level 65 does not have kindred with all factions yet. Now obviously I can go around grinding mobs in the rep area but why can't I also have fun getting rep with Tasks?

Orion, you say that the level cap is to prevent 65's from trashing the lowlvl content for the task deeds. Thats barely a problem for virtues, and everybody does virtues, only a few people are completionists.

Second of all: I have a few kinnies who are really completionists and want the cloak. They are gonna bring out their lvl 65 hunter/RK, go to the lowlvl zones, trash everything in sight for a few hours, transfer the loot to a new alt, then log alt every day to complete their daily tasks. Afaik is the loot tradable. So how is this level cap gonna help again?

There are vast amounts of Quests, deeds and bounty quests that can help any player reach 50 or 65. Why add tasks instead of new content?

If you want to add content that matters to the Lotro community why not focus on Adding new PVE and PVMP zones or instances? You know PVMP that VIP's pay for but that gets no real attention over the last 365 days?? What about a Housing Revamp? Hobbies revamp???? fixing Moria instances?? adding new skirnishes even??? adding more quests that have depth? New instances??? new end game content????

Theres so many more important sources of content that NEED attention and YOU bosses at Turbine give your player base REHARSH after reharsh of the same bloody content!!!!

Tasks are low resource Filler wastes of time that add nothing to the game we didn't already have but far better "Bounty Quests" Anyone would think you took a lot of your programmers off Lotro to put them on other projects forcing the devs to reharsh old content because they dont have the man power to create any significant new content.

What old content are you going to reuse/reharsh next while trying to play it off as lotro development?

What I do not understand is this...

After the first tasks are made, it is more or less a copy-and-paste to add the remaining tasks. The system itself is the same whether the trash object ID is 1000 or 1001, and amount to collect and reward cash given is also just a number.

So, why, oh, why did they stop at level 50? Why on earth did they not make 5 more for lv 55, 5 for 60 and 5 for 65?

I find it hard to believe they did not have time to add these.

Makes me wonder if they activly chose not to add for the cap-levels on purpose.

Originally Posted by Orion

Glad one of you posted the first part of this:
Tasks are meant to augment leveling for free players, primarily.

Considering that free players have access to all quests up to around level 20 already, wouldn't it make more sense that the tasks start around level 20 and go all the way up to level 65? This is the level band where free players will potentially have leveling problems.

Originally Posted by Orion

As to why there are level restrictions: Imagine a world where all the high level players wanted to go back an get these deeds, and now imagine that you are a player who is working through the game at your own pace. The potential devastation to the fauna and the lack of fun that would be present to all those who are just starting to enjoy the game world who were using these quests as a way to remain engaged with the world. As these are made, primarily, for free players and characters who are leveling we wanted to make certain that the experience was as constrained and forgiving, to those players, as possible. By opening up tasks (8-50) to all players we would likely be inviting an experience that would be less than ideal for the target audience.

I do not follow your argument here. High level players have been able to go back and do low level quests for years and it has seemingly not been an actual problem. Similarly, high level players have been able go back into a low level area to complete deeds which often require players to kill an absurd amount of mobs in order to complete them. Nevertheless it still has not been an actual problem. But now with tasks you suddenly expect that hordes of high level players would go back into a low level area and wipe out all living things there?

But even if we would expect that, there are at least two possible solutions to this assumed problem:

a) Make sure that tasks are (1) available up to level 65 and that (2) an on-level task always gives a level appropriate reward. That way high level players will prefer higher level tasks over low level ones.

b) Scale the level of the task dynamically to the player character level. So there would be a small set of template tasks in the game which would be backed by a table which would list the rewards and required trophy turn-ins for every 5 levels starting at level 20. When now a level 20 player clicks on the task on the board, he would see the version scaled to the level band 20 - 25. If on the other side a level 60 player clicks on the same task he would see the version scaled to the level band 60 - 65. That way players would always automatically and only get the task which is most appropriate for their level and this would also have the advantage that the whole mechanism would be much more generic and easier to maintain.

But I personally don't see a significant amount of high level players running into the starter areas to do those tasks. It's de facto only the completionists who would do that - and they are a relatively small portion of the player base. But in any case, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see that you guys are investing time and money into building content for that portion of the player base which either does not invest any money at all into the game or only very rarely. But your customers who have signed up for VIP status and thus are giving you guys a fixed amount of money every month that you can count on are treaded as second class citizens just because our characters are already at level cap.

But I personally have a much bigger problem with this topic: the amount of development time that is invested into a feature which is of highly questionable value especially for the people who have been playing here for a couple of years now, when on the other side, we have a whole range of different areas and game mechanics which have been broken since release and there is still no visible or measurable progress on those fronts.

Areas like:

1) Mob pathing: this game has a really pathetic pathing system which has been in a very poor shape since release. Soldiers and pets which can not get over a 1cm high stone on the ground or landscape mobs which run 20 extra miles when I attack them before they are able to get to me (if they don't reset in the meantime) because there is a tree between me and the mob, etc.

2) Debuff spam from mobs: Debuffs which are handed out by landscape mobs in this game often have completely absurd durations of up to 5 minutes. Debuffs are often spammed as if there would not be a tomorrow. Debuffs like disarm, stun and root are applied to a player after he has barely touched the mob or just 1 second before the mob dies anyway.

Debuffs applied by landscape mobs should never have a duration longer than 30 seconds. Only instance/raid bosses should be able to hand out longer duration debuffs. Debuffs like disarm, stun and root should never last for more than 5 seconds. Additionally a player should have a 5 second immunity after he gets into combat with a mob before the mob will be able to use a disarm, stun or root. Similarly a mob should never hand out a disarm, stun or root if its HP value is below 5%.

3) Mob abilities without a cooldown: there are so many mobs which obviously do not have any cooldown on their abilities. Most obvious are those orcs in Angmar and the North Downs which are able to heal: they have barely finished the current heal induction when they already start another one.

How many years do we still have to wait until every mob ability has been assigned a reasonable cooldown?

4) Mobs that chain-back-off: there are mobs which, when you approach them as a melee character, back off as soon as you attack them. You try to close back in and the mob starts backing off again. This "minigame" can go on for easily 30 seconds before the mob finally stays in place.

Again, there should be an appropriate cooldown on that mob ability so that attacking the mob doesn't turn into a hide and seek minigame.

5) Melee fight range is way too small: as soon as a mob starts running away from a melee character it becomes impossible to hit it anymore as long as it is running. Melee range should be twice as large as it is now so that you can still hit running mobs. The fact that there is no tolerance on the orientation check doesn't make the situation any better. As soon as my melee character crosses the center point of a mob by just one pixel, the game tells me "You're looking the wrong way!". There should be a tolerance of 5% (relative to the mobs bbox) by which I can step through the mobs center point before the orientation check returns the "looking the wrong way" status - just like in other MMOs.

6) Tooltips which clip text instead of wrapping it: this is especially annoying for LI tooltips in the AH when you try to figure out what legacies are on that LI before you spend money on it. In the German localization that are some legacies with really long descriptions where the first half reads the same and the only difference is in the second 50% which is cut off...

7) Broken keyboard focus management in the chat: you are typing something into the chat and someone wants to summon you or starts a trade with you. Consequence: the pop-up panel steals the keyboard focus and you start accepting/dismissing something and you have not even any idea what you just accepted or dismissed. If I put the keyboard focus into the chat, then it should stay there even if some window pops up.

8) After all those years you still continue designing the UI for screens with a 640x480 resolution. The UI looks really bad on modern day resolutions. Funnily enough, companies like Blizzard, Mythic or ArenaNet have no problem designing icons in such a way that thy still look good on high resolution monitors.

9) Broken buff/debuff display: Buffs and debuffs are crammed into a tiny little area below my vital display where they can be barely seen. They should be displayed in a separate window (look at WoW to get an inspiration) and stacking buffs/debuffs should display only _one_ icon with a badge number that tells me how many stacks there are.

10) Missing LFG tool: this game absolutely and totally needs a reasonable LFG tool. Just adding a server-wide, global LFG channel would already be a good start. Yes there are often user created LFG channels, but especially new players don't know about them and long term players often don't know about them either. It is not necessary to build a fully automatic group building tool from the start, but at least start somewhere and start now - actually you should have started building that thing 2 years ago.

11) Scaling and absurd high craft durations: the higher you get in the crafting tiers, the longer it takes to craft something. Why? This is a highly annoying misfeature. There should always be the same craft duration no matter what tier and it should be severely cut down across the board. For example, smelting some ore should take at most 2 seconds flat.

It's fascinating to see that on one side you guys have plenty of time to stick 3 (!!!!) store buttons into the craft panel but not one single second to go in and reduce the craft duration constants to reasonable values.

12) Broken hit detection: picking things up in this game can be a highly annoying experience because the game is always using a pixel-based hit detection method. Consequently you end up trying to find just the "right" pixel which you need to click before the game will finally understand that you want to pick up that freaking sword from the ground.

Instead the game should first do a bounding box check. Only if there are other pick-able items close by should the game check whether the bounding boxes of those items overlap the item and fall back to the pixel precise hit detection algorithm if that is the case. That way clicking something would become much easier.

13) Stable masters: why I'm always dismounted just out of talking range from a stable master? I would expect that you are dismounted in talking range so that you could immediately click on the stable master to select the next route. Why is it so impossible to align the destination names in the stable master dialogs with the names on the maps? Mousing over a head icon o a map should show _exactly_ the same name that is shown in the stable master dialog.

14) Etc, pp.

Orion, shouldn't you guys put your work priority on these things? These are all things that have a direct impact on the playability of the game and can either attract new players to the game, create enough incentive for a F2P player to move up to VIP status or on the other side cause people to drop the game and never come back.

So Orion, what exactly are those of us sitting at the level cap supposed to be excited

about in this upcoming patch? Tasks look completely focused on making the game more

interesting to the low level crowd, specifically the F2P folks. That's fine for them, but

what about the rest of us? You know, the people who still subscribe and have cap level

toons? In case you've forgotten, we're still here, though it's starting to feel like we're

not wanted. Instead of designing more repetitive content for the 1-50 crowd, could

you guys maybe toss us cap level toons something interesting to chew on for awhile?

I can only collect boar feces for so long before I realize something's really starting to

stink.

What's interesting is outside of a single troll post, I'm not really seeing the F2P crowd argue the need to keep tasks as they are right now. Where is the rebuttal to 10 pages of people asking for non-exclusive content? I would think if this content is for them alone, they would be here singing its praise. Or do they not want to be locked out of it either once they hit mid 50s?

Originally Posted by darnd

I can only collect boar feces for so long before I realize something's really starting to stink.

I couldn't help myself ehhehe great analogy to what's going on.

PS: Btw, those 3 quests from Maur Tulhan (kill bugan/collect boar ****/antlers) don't even give rep (neither Grey Companion nor Algraig). 5k iaxp x3 = 15k... Library of Steel in GV in 1/10 of the time and 12k...

if the level restriction is not removed, you have to wholly and absolutely eliminate every single non-xp reward to tasks. delete all the deeds. delete all the cloak rewards. delete all the reputation rewards. keeping level-restricted tasks with any of those three additional rewards is absolutely unacceptable, because those are things for which there should be an even playing field, which have NOTHING to do with helping low characters level.

so take your pick: remove the level restriction or remove all the non-xp rewards associated with tasks.

Originally Posted by Beldacar

Well, I can say that I won't be making any use of this system (unless the deed rewards are exceptionally attractive). The last thing I want is to level even faster in this game. Heck, I only do quests because of the Virtue rewards. I'd skip most of those (and all the unwanted XP) if they weren't the most efficient way to get things like Innocence.

Yep. It's the same thing like when Skirmishes were introduced. I played a couple of them, and then noticed the MASSIVE amounts of XP they doled out, and was essentially locked out from playing that content until I reached level-cap. (Due to wanting to slow down my leveling rate in order to keep regions challenging, relevant, and interesting)

If you want to experience even the fraction of the pre-level-cap content on-level, as you were prior to Skirmishes, you have to skip the skirmish content altogether.

oh boy, do u devs hear about what the player base have been saying so many times about how hard its sometimes to get in group and how fast leveling in lotro is?! Tasks will ruin both even more, because they give additional xp and people will progress even more in solo mode so group chances will be even less
Devs listen to ur player base!

I hate to bring more unhappiness to the general tone of disappointment in this thread, but the news about tasks makes me sad. I understand that content needs to be produced for lower-level people (who didn't like the LL revamp?). I also understand that not every update can have new endgame content (although this seems odd, because I would think that this would be the target group who by definition has exhausted the most existing content, and is most in need of new content).

However, the gating of the tasks, by level-gating and non-implementation of 50-65 tasks, is extremely unfortunate. I am rather completionist myself, and as people have mentioned, I feel like the most efficient way to get these cloaks for my 50+ characters is to decimate the Shire and Ered Luin with a high-level char and then trade the vendor trash to an alt. I don't think this was intended, but that will be the result if this implementation goes Live.

As somewhat of a completionist, I can't say that I'm too bothered by the level restrictions. In any event if getting the cloaks are your thing, it makes sense that eventually they'd be available in the store.

The thing that doesn't really make sense about these additions is the purpose. Sure, there's not as much "content" available for free to player players, but isn't that the point? We never had any issues leveling lower level characters in the Shire, Ered Luin or Breeland, so it doesn't seem to be begging for additional pseudo-quests.

And if the point is to allow players more opportunity to get through the mid levels...why not just encourage them to purchase an account or a quest pack like they do now?

It seems like a waste of design resources to create a niche quest market duplicating a role that already exists ESPECIALLY for something as boring as this. There's really no great elements in 250 <--geez, quests that are all collection based quests off of standard game mobs.

Collection based quests have really never been too interesting to begin with so the one thing that does seem fitting is the name. These are tasks, chores to complete instead of gameplay

I actually don't think that this is a bad idea. It provides more content for the freebies, yet doesn't negatively impact anyone else. However, I am what many people know as a "completionist". I like making 100% runs and doing everything there is to offer. That means there's a problem with the tasks, because I won't be able to comlete the task deeds since my level is too high. Maybe you could make some minor modifications that don't affect overall gameplay yet still allow anyone to complete any deed? I like reputation, but more than that, I like collectible cloaks. Why else would I have spent over 8 hours in chicken play, reattempting the trollshaws 4 times (after getting stealthed the first 3 times)?

Originally Posted by Gedrevn

And if the point is to allow players more opportunity to get through the mid levels...why not just encourage them to purchase an account or a quest pack like they do now?

Interesting... Maybe the money isn't coming from quest packs? F2P now gets Moria and Mirkwood access + Lone Lands is only 50 points, + 250 quests to help them keep on leveling to the cap... maybe the money is coming from the "CONVENIECES" like stat tomes, trait boosts, pots, etc. that people won't buy until they are grinding out the later content.

This would still be baffling to me either way since the latter content is in such disrepair, but that might at least explain the rush to get people leveled up.

Originally Posted by Orion

Glad one of you posted the first part of this:

The Shire, Ered Luin and Breeland tasks are there to on-board players. They are not the only areas where they are available. I agree with the sentiment of many of you that the early leveling is not in need of more, because you do level very quickly and over-level nearly everything that you come upon.

Tasks are meant to augment leveling for free players, primarily.

As to why there are level restrictions: Imagine a world where all the high level players wanted to go back an get these deeds, and now imagine that you are a player who is working through the game at your own pace. The potential devastation to the fauna and the lack of fun that would be present to all those who are just starting to enjoy the game world who were using these quests as a way to remain engaged with the world. As these are made, primarily, for free players and characters who are leveling we wanted to make certain that the experience was as constrained and forgiving, to those players, as possible. By opening up tasks (8-50) to all players we would likely be inviting an experience that would be less than ideal for the target audience.

Orion, While I figured this was the reason for level gating, I think the concern might perhaps surpass reality, but I don't have the statistics. How many end game players hit Lone Lands at SoM release? The level gate is something hard for me to get behind. I have nearly collected every mount, done almost every deed, and completed close to all quests. I know which ones I still have to do. Tasks would be something I would do, but it wouldn't be something I'd dive into right away. I think the tsunami fear here is extreme. I'd imagine folks would gradually try them instead of frustrating new players. Just don't allow the items to be posted on AH, you'd see less end gamers dumping into the area. There is way too much to do for most folks to cause an upset I'd imagine. Again, I assume Turbine has metrics on user reaction to new content even at extreme level differences. I am just surprised by it.

Why?

Levels 1-20 are so easy now a cat batting my mouse around to accidentally hit level 20 in a day or so. LOTRO is overloaded with low level quest content, and lower levels have been dumbed down to the point of becoming a sad joke.

Content with a max level cap … why on earth do this? I pay for this game every month, and already have one slot for every class, with all my toons over level 14, so I’m paying for game content I’m excluded from playing? This is utter foolishness, and sets poor precedent.

I had hoped the developers were spending their time, and Turbines resources in a positive way … my hopes have been dashed.

Always before Turbine has been focused on delivering a quality product, and although I did not always agree with development choices, they made sense. In reading this, I can only direct the Dev team to engage in a group activity involving being over, reaching around back, and pulling their heads out of their behinds …

The main reason I am disappointed in level restrictions are the fact that you will award cloaks for some of these tasks. We all love cloaks (well most of us do), even the higher level players. There MAY be an awesome cloak I like in one of the lower level tasks, I'll never be able to get that cloak on my main character.

Originally Posted by m1k3y

The main reason I am disappointed in level restrictions are the fact that you will award cloaks for some of these tasks. We all love cloaks (well most of us do), even the higher level players. There MAY be an awesome cloak I like in one of the lower level tasks, I'll never be able to get that cloak on my main character.

No, you will, because that's Turbine's obvious plan:

1. The cloaks will probably be for sale in the store, thereby getting money from subscribers who are level capped,

or

2. You have to start a new character and use your wardrobe to allow your level capped characters to wear them, which means you'll probably end up spending money to increase wardrobe space to accommodate.

Unfortunately the new Turbine = SoE = Cryptic

Originally Posted by theonekane

My only concern over this system comes from them being level gated. High levels won't be able to go back and do earlier tasks for the deeds/cloaks/reputation?

The completionists will not be pleased with this development...

They screwed us with no retroactive TPs for completed deeds....


and now they are screwing completionists again.

Great way to reward your most loyal and /played customers....

Originally Posted by Cerridwen

One more thing I'd like to say. I saw one or two people talking about the majority of the player-base being at 'end game', is this an assumption or do you work for Turbine and know exactly the stats because I don't recall Turbine ever releasing stats. Just because there's a vocal group who complains on the forums about them being 'bored' and 'not having any content' does not mean the majority of players are level 65; or even 50+.

There have actually been several dev statements confirming the opposite. The majority of players are not at the level cap and never have been. I would assume that since F2P that is even more obviously true. Cap players are a VERY vocal minority.

Originally Posted by spiritintelligencia

Funny! I just started playing this game called "Runes of Magic" and they have these bulletin boards set up in all the towns with daily tasks on them. The bulletin boards look exactly the same as the one pictured in the diary...

Screenshot? I'd love to see that.

Originally Posted by Lohi

This is a patch release. This doesn't even count as content for low level players. A typical task would be something like "collect 25 broken swords". That's not content.

That's another part of the problem. Assuming an early February Book 3 release, it will have been five months between actual content added to the game. F2P and the new Book-less release schedule were supposed to give us "more frequent content updates". We're still looking for those.

Originally Posted by RusselDog

1. Considering the work that Orion did rebuilding the early zones last year, and the end quality of that product, why are they wasting his (talented) time on this drivel? Shouldn't he be heading up work on new zones instead of finding a way to divert silver from low level accounts?

Another major concern of mine. Orion is one of the best developers Turbine has. Goblin-town, Lone-lands revamp, GA revamp, redoing the entire Volume I storyline, this guy gets it. Yet they stuck him on this low level filler nonsense? It's a travesty and an insult to his intelligence.

Originally Posted by hex2323

No matter what they add, the grumps complain.

I agree most of the time, but on this? Would ANYONE here include me in "the grumps"?

Originally Posted by Mithrandir3

Instead of fixing the dreadfully buggy raids that have been out for over a year, or adding the "multiple raid clusters" we were promised in 2010, we get an entire freaking region dedicated to festival silliness, and a 4th revamp of the Ered Luin starter instance.

Forgotten Treasury is enabled on Bullroarer. Don't know about FG and Skum.

What is this "multiple raid clusters"? Source?

Originally Posted by Deusdictum

You forgot:

7.

Also: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...-Events-System

I just can't believe these are level-gated. I really (really) hope they reconsider that decision.

Originally Posted by StavroMuellerBeta

After 49 weeks with no new end-game content, I'm not sure the wisest course of action is to lock a major subset of the player base out of new features that was supposed to be for "everyone".

This is a PATCH release, there was never any expectation from anyone for end game content with it. Turbine has already said the next content release is next year, it should be no suprise or dismay to anyone that they did not change their minds and put half working end game content into a patch release.

When you see new content it will be called book 3.

I'm just asking for an answer to this one simple question: With no active alts, what reason is there for me not to just log out until the next content-based update?

None. If you find the game is not fun, then why are you playing it? This is not a request to go away, but a request to possibly find a second outlet for your entertainment time instead of constantly asking "are we there yet?" from the back seat. When I get burned out I go do something else.

Originally Posted by gildhur

3) The level restrictions are unacceptable. This is the first and only content (and it's a stretch to even call it that) added to the game that has a maximum level for participation. Having been around for four years, there is a reason this has never been done before - it is universally unpopular. Especially if these tasks have associated deeds (that award TP) and cosmetic rewards, there should be no maximum level at all.

There has been level range restricted content for a long time. Prior to Free To Play there was very little of it. IIRC - It is vector quests to take you new quest hubs. The September update introduced some new level restricted content - some of which awarded Turbine Points.

Unfortunately, I not very up on a lot of the lower level content because it has been ages since I started a brand new character.