Thread: Update 7: Developer Diary Feedback: Fornost

Fornost is next on our upgrade train as we march up through the instances of LOTRO. Read more in the latest Developer Diary from Joe 'jwbarry' Barry and post your comments here!

Looks good. It'll be nice to have other 6-Mans to play besides Roots/Foundry.

Sounds great and I'm really looking forward to it! I have one question regarding something stated in the diary.

"Our goal with these changes is to make Fornost the second set of 6-man spaces you encounter while leveling up."

With this stated intention, what becomes of Garth Agarwen? It was the first space to get the splitting up treatment but has never been revisted to get the scaled instance treatment. It traditionally was always the second instance players would get to while leveling. It sounds like the Fornost revamp will totally make GA irrelevant in the short term. I'd love to know if there's any plans to make it relevant again any time soon.

It will be great to see another 75 instance. However, why not seals? Medallions are easy to get.

Originally Posted by Harrold

Sounds great and I'm really looking forward to it! I have one question regarding something stated in the diary.

"Our goal with these changes is to make Fornost the second set of 6-man spaces you encounter while leveling up."

With this stated intention, what becomes of Garth Agarwen? It was the first space to get the splitting up treatment but has never been revisted to get the scaled instance treatment. It traditionally was always the second instance players would get to while leveling. It sounds like the Fornost revamp will totally make GA irrelevant in the short term. I'd love to know if there's any plans to make it relevant again any time soon.

Because the lower level requirement is dropping to 30; GB at 25, Fornost 30 and then GA at 36.

I appreciate the amount of work that went into breaking up Fornost. From what I've seen, of all the instances broken up and scaled these seem to be very well done.

Originally Posted by Mourwen

It will be great to see another 75 instance. However, why not seals? Medallions are easy to get.

I would think that the challenges will grant seals similar to other 6-man scaling instances. I think the reference to medallions vs. marks is specifically to the optional questions (i.e. Killing ## of a mob, burning/collect ## object). As these are available at all levels and you don't have to complete the instances for these, I doubt they'd ever grant seals.

Having them grant medallions instead of marks will hopefully make up the difference between the rewards for scaling instances and Isengard. Isengard will probably still benefit from a higher base reward amount and (probably just as important) a much smaller pool of instances to be picked via the IF.

Will this be only for Fornost or will this apply to all scaling instances? (Would especially love it if it were the latter )

Originally Posted by Mourwen

It will be great to see another 75 instance. However, why not seals? Medallions are easy to get.

Challenge quests award Seals. Optional quests award medallions. Same as Annuminas and GB instances currently, except their optional quests award marks only.

Originally Posted by Harrold

what becomes of Garth Agarwen? It was the first space to get the splitting up treatment but has never been revisted to get the scaled instance treatment. It traditionally was always the second instance players would get to while leveling. It sounds like the Fornost revamp will totally make GA irrelevant in the short term. I'd love to know if there's any plans to make it relevant again any time soon.

I second that. With Fornost change it will become the lowest non-scaled instance, irrelevant for everyone past level 35. However, Garth Agarwen is SO ready to be scaled! It's already been split, already has challenge quests and optional quests - all you need to do is make it scalable, remove the trash loot, move chest loot and whatever you barter for Eglain tokens to Skirmish camp and add new currency and loot rewards. It should take much less man-hours than Fornost revamp, because it's already half-way to be scaled.

Looks great, can't wait to start playing it. It looks like it will be a good way for lower level (and newer players) to get used to the variety of fight mechanics.

I am against instance splitting, but I will give credit where it is due. I dislike uninspired, boring boss fights. Old Fornost had a lot of those. Pretty much all the fights except for the four Wraiths were awfully straightforward with little to no player awareness required. Glad to hear that the boss fights have been throughly revamped.

Looking forward to trying them out.

Long overdue and looking forward to diving into it. I wish there were a way to proceed directly from instance to instance to maintain the immersion of the entire space instead of having to leave and join the next one from the landscape, but I understand the technical limitations.

Glad Sara Oakheart got to stick around to torment us.

So sad, Let the dumbing down of content continue!! Huzzah!!

Originally Posted by brunnhilda

So sad, Let the dumbing down of content continue!! Huzzah!!

Have you played it on Bullroarer?

Originally Posted by gildhur

Have you played it on Bullroarer?

Obviously no as it can't be called "dumbed down"

I'm really pleased to read about these changes, looking forward to see how it all plays once implemented! I'm sure I'm not the only one who's never been able to experience the whole place because of group members dropping out due to it taking so long to play through.

Oh and I don't see this as 'dumbing down' content, I see it as a common sense change. If you read the dev diary, you would've read the part about Fornost flat-lining, meaning no-one or almost no-one was playing it. Therefore these changes should help breathe life into a dead instance, and help to make it relevant for a variety of level ranges; not just a handful of level 30s.

Originally Posted by Harrold

Sounds great and I'm really looking forward to it! I have one question regarding something stated in the diary.

"Our goal with these changes is to make Fornost the second set of 6-man spaces you encounter while leveling up."

With this stated intention, what becomes of Garth Agarwen? It was the first space to get the splitting up treatment but has never been revisted to get the scaled instance treatment. It traditionally was always the second instance players would get to while leveling. It sounds like the Fornost revamp will totally make GA irrelevant in the short term. I'd love to know if there's any plans to make it relevant again any time soon.

Others have made great points about this, and I would also love to see, GA scaled.

But, also GA is not a set of 6-man instances. Even if it was available starting at level 25, it would still be 2 3-man instances and 1 6-man instance, not a set of 6-mans...

Also, GA Fortress still has the best music in the game.

More Medallions?? I run RoF and Foundry for its Seals and get plenty of Medallions in the process. If they're to be competitive, they've got to have a similar Seal/hr rate...

As for breaking it up and scaling it: So far I've found it a disappointment, but Fornost is the one instance that probably needed it most... but I just can't understand why does every single 6-man need to have the same 45-60 mins target time and have similar buildup with 2 or 3 bosses with comparable sets of 'special effects'? Can't we have one or two that do target players who like more extensive instances?

I've recently been solo-ing/duo-ing Urugarth and am still impressed by it: it's such a different atmosphere from any of the recent instances. Clear sky... you're able to look ahead. Non-linear paths through the instance. Areas that mean sudden death if you're walking in unprepared. Patrols that run off to call for help and pull half the instance upon you if you don't get them... instead of silly Orcs that just stand there and watch you slaughter their friends. Compared to that the newer instances feel much more scripted and rigid.

I'm not really pro-splitting instances but this seems like a good idea. I've only ever started Fornost once and that ended quite fast as people realized it would take hooooours. It also gives me some incentive to buy the ND quest pack.

Even if Fornost is made a little easier, and there's no indication yet that this is the case, we're not losing anything. People barely played it anyway, so there's hardly a huge percentage of people who liked the level of hardness or whatever of the old Fornost. And giving us some new instances to do is great.

I have one big fear - I hope this doesn't mean other SoA instances will also be scaled/cut into pieces. If Urugarth or Carn Dum are touched, I shall come after the dev responsible with a big hammer.

Originally Posted by LeppardUK

[...]I have one big fear - I hope this doesn't mean other SoA instances will also be scaled/cut into pieces. If Urugarth or Carn Dum are touched, I shall come after the dev responsible with a big hammer.

I have a feeling that Urugarth, CD, and Rift will probably be at the end of the SoA instance revamps and that Barad Guluran and GA will probably come first.

After SoA is done then the logical conclusion is that Moria instances are next.

Originally Posted by LeppardUK

I have one big fear - I hope this doesn't mean other SoA instances will also be scaled/cut into pieces. If Urugarth or Carn Dum are touched, I shall come after the dev responsible with a big hammer.

I (sort of) understand the dislike for splitting instances, but why would anyone be against scaling?

Originally Posted by LeppardUK

I'm not really pro-splitting instances but this seems like a good idea. I've only ever started Fornost once and that ended quite fast as people realized it would take hooooours. It also gives me some incentive to buy the ND quest pack.

Even if Fornost is made a little easier, and there's no indication yet that this is the case, we're not losing anything. People barely played it anyway, so there's hardly a huge percentage of people who liked the level of hardness or whatever of the old Fornost. And giving us some new instances to do is great.

I have one big fear - I hope this doesn't mean other SoA instances will also be scaled/cut into pieces. If Urugarth or Carn Dum are touched, I shall come after the dev responsible with a big hammer.

I would be all in favor of Uru and CD getting scaled. Then they would be interesting again. Nearly every instance in this game needs to be playable from a certain minimum level to the cap. I honestly didn't even know Urugarth and CD existed until I was so far over level they weren't interesting to play. I would imagine a majority of players quest and level without ever joining in 6 man instances until much later in the game. I know I did. As a new player, I just didn't really understand the whole system and didn't know to look for a 6-man fellowship until later. I never ran GB until I was in my 50s. I didn't know what it was.

As far as chopping them up, I don't see what the problem is. If you like 4 hour runs, then play the sections back to back. The number of people who would do a 4 hour Fornost run from start to finish is a very small minority of the players. However, the number of people who would put 30 - 60 min into an instance are much bigger. So, it just makes sense to break them up for the majority rather than neglect the majority to please a small minority. The minority can run back-to-back if they really want.

Originally Posted by Lothirien

I (sort of) understand the dislike for splitting instances, but why would anyone be against scaling?

Personally, I'm against scaling because it's developer time spent redoing old content that could instead be spent producing new content.

Originally Posted by Lestache

Personally, I'm against scaling because it's developer time spent redoing old content that could instead be spent producing new content.

That's a falacy. Not because something is new it has to be necessarily better.
The old instances from SoA have more attention to detail on them, better planning and design, and often they are more original (funny enough, being older) than the latest ones. They attempted new ideas on those when the game was new and the developers were daring.
Most of the newer instances since Dar Narbugund have repeated the unoriginal pattern of Trash Section -> Choreography fight with boss -> Trash section -> Choreography fight with boss...
(Notable exceptions to this rule being "Inn of the Forsaken", the fumbled "Dungeons of Dol Guldur", and maybe a couple more).

I'm totally in for the scaling up of old instances. My only objection is when they remove the innovative or original mechanics out of them to make them fit more and more into the boring Trash->Choreography->Trash->Choreography mold that the devs seems to have been mentally trapped lately.
For example, Great Barrow used to be a maze. Solving a maze is also a gameplay feature that the original version used to have. It made this instance unique in that sense. After the scaling, the maze was basically removed.
Great Barrow and Fornost were quite open. You didn´t have to go to the towers in a specific order to complete the whole instance. You could skip the water wraith in Fornost and go directly up the slope and explore the whole city at your own pace. With the scaling, they have made the whole city totally linear.

If they ever scale Carn Dûm, I bet they will make it linear as hell. While right now you can explore it almost totally free. You can go to the slave pens first, or to the main courtyard. From the slave pens you can go to the sewage system and Helchgam or to Barashal platforms area. From the courtyard you can go to the Morroval area or to the castle, or to the angmarim quarters. It feels like a real place, not a linear themepark.
The same happens with Barad Gularan, Urugarth, Grand Stair, Skûmfil, and before being scaled up, with Fornost and Helegrod.

Please, cannot we have some scaling without making the instance so linear?

I'm wondering about setting minimum lv to 30. Does that mean current questchains and/or nearby landscape are reworked too?

In other words: is there a point in preparing 30-ish characters via clearing out Dol Dinen or it's only going to result in various shifts and resets in their questlogs?

Originally Posted by FromgalTheMinstrel

That's a falacy. Not because something is new it has to be necessarily better.
The old instances from SoA have more attention to detail on them, better planning and design, and often they are more original (funny enough, being older) than the latest ones. They attempted new ideas on those when the game was new and the developers were daring.
Most of the newer instances since Dar Narbugund have repeated the unoriginal pattern of Trash Section -> Choreography fight with boss -> Trash section -> Choreography fight with boss...
(Notable exceptions to this rule being "Inn of the Forsaken", the fumbled "Dungeons of Dol Guldur", and maybe a couple more).

I'm totally in for the scaling up of old instances. My only objection is when they remove the innovative or original mechanics out of them to make them fit more and more into the boring Trash->Choreography->Trash->Choreography mold that the devs seems to have been mentally trapped lately.
For example, Great Barrow used to be a maze. Solving a maze is also a gameplay feature that the original version used to have. It made this instance unique in that sense. After the scaling, the maze was basically removed.
Great Barrow and Fornost were quite open. You didn´t have to go to the towers in a specific order to complete the whole instance. You could skip the water wraith in Fornost and go directly up the slope and explore the whole city at your own pace. With the scaling, they have made the whole city totally linear.

If they ever scale Carn Dûm, I bet they will make it linear as hell. While right now you can explore it almost totally free. You can go to the slave pens first, or to the main courtyard. From the slave pens you can go to the sewage system and Helchgam or to Barashal platforms area. From the courtyard you can go to the Morroval area or to the castle, or to the angmarim quarters. It feels like a real place, not a linear themepark.
The same happens with Barad Gularan, Urugarth, Grand Stair, Skûmfil, and before being scaled up, with Fornost and Helegrod.

Please, cannot we have some scaling without making the instance so linear?

No fallacy in my statement - just a simple declaration that I would prefer developer time be spent making new content rather than remaking old content. I never said (or even implied) that new content would necessarily be better content.

From my perspective as someone who is lucky enough to have done all the instances in the game on-level, revamping and scaling old instances doesn't add much to the game for me, so I'd prefer that brand new instances be developed as well. I'm only one person, and someone who has no power over the decisions that Turbine makes, so I understand that I'm not always going to get what I want. I also understand why other people - especially those who never experienced any of the older instances at their original levels - do like scaled instances.

I was simply replying to the question of "how could anybody be against scaling?"

Originally Posted by Ferthcott

I'm wondering about setting minimum lv to 30. Does that mean current questchains and/or nearby landscape are reworked too?

In other words: is there a point in preparing 30-ish characters via clearing out Dol Dinen or it's only going to result in various shifts and resets in their questlogs?

I have a feeling that most of the quests at the end of quest chains that lead to fighting bosses in Fornost have probably been separated from their original quest chains so that they can be bestowed when you go into the instance.

Originally Posted by FromgalTheMinstrel

If they ever scale Carn Dûm, I bet they will make it linear as hell. While right now you can explore it almost totally free. You can go to the slave pens first, or to the main courtyard.

Actually that's not right. The only way you can go to the main courtyard straight away is if you have been in Carn Dum before and gone through the slave pens all the way up to Barashal and to the Morroval boss above the town to get the keys that open the shortcut gates on the way to the main courtyard.

The scaled instances really aren't much different. You can do each part in sequence or take a shortcut by jumping into a later part. The only difference is that instead of having a "key to whatever" on your keychain to take the shortcut, you now have a deed that acts as gate to the advanced parts of the instance.

Personally I'm looking forward to the scaled Fornost. I've only been playing this game for a year and a half, and due to a mix of not knowing enough on-level people and having real-life obligations that prevent me from committing to such a long instance (kids ) I haven't so much as set a foot into the old Fornost. The dev diary makes the new Fornost sound like a group of instances that I will have a good chance of experiencing and enjoying.

I remember when you devs split up Great Barrow, I was really looking forward to it. I loved that place, I went there with every character I have on low level. After running the scaled version a few times I had to realize that the spirit and atmosphere of the place was ruined, and now I hate Great Barrow. I bet it's not just me who feels this way. (Not to mention the awful superior 3rd and 4th mark grind attached to it before changing currencies.)

From the devdiary it seems you tried to do a better job with Fornost. When I first ventured there with a lvl40 group around 3 years ago we spent like 4 hours inside. It was long, tiring, but it in the end I felt I achieved something great. I really hope you kept that atmosphere in Fornost and the 4 instances chained together properly.

I just ask for one thing if it's possible: When you split and scale up other SoA instances in the future, please find a way to keep the old, unscalable version as well. I dont want to see Carn Dum and Urugarth ruined, I want to see them intact. There are locks in Carn Dum for a reason anyway. I think there are many of us out there who like spending more than 1 hour in an instance, no matter what are the current tendencies in MMOs.

To upgrade and scale Fornost seems a good idea, will certainly run it a few times.

However I know alot of people who would like a new longer instance that would take about 2 hours to complete. It surely does not have to be so vast as Carn Dum, but the new 6-mans simply don't have an epic feeling about them.

Originally Posted by Valerian_Moonfire

To upgrade and scale Fornost seems a good idea, will certainly run it a few times.

However I know alot of people who would like a new longer instance that would take about 2 hours to complete. It surely does not have to be so vast as Carn Dum, but the new 6-mans simply don't have an epic feeling about them.

Count me in that group. I like having options for short runs when I don't have a lot of time, and short length certainly makes things easier on those nights where we have to pug a person or two. However, I would love to have more options for long instances that feel more like the Rift, have a good story flow, and don't require entering and leaving wings as separate instances.

But that said, I'm looking forward to exploring the new scaled Fornost.

I've never been a fan of Fornost, personally, but I know I'll probably give at least each separate instance a whirl when it goes live. I agree with a few people who posted before me, though, medallions are extremely easy to obtain, it's the seals that can be a little more frustrating and I hope that there's a worthwhile seal reward from doing the challenges (and possibly even on t2).

Overall I think the only thing that makes me cringe (more than the instance itself) was reading this little tidbit:

... this should expand your knowledge and introduce you to new things in the toolkit, including:

Player Movement and Positioning
Cluster together, separate (distributed damage vs aoe)
Jumping and platforming during combat
Positional damage

+1 for teaching the "younger"/upcoming/new players about stacking vs. not stacking (since that's so key in so many endgame instances now), but the jumping during combat? Honestly, it seems to be the most frustrating mechanic for both players and raid leaders currently (namely when it comes to Acid wing) and adding more content that requires this "special" (for lack of a nicer term to use) mechanic for boss fights is just beyond my comprehension.

I would be a whole lot happier with the splitting of the large instances if they simply put two doors at the end of each - one to "Exit" and one to move "Onward to the next instance".

Originally Posted by Harrold

"Our goal with these changes is to make Fornost the second set of 6-man spaces you encounter while leveling up."

With this stated intention, what becomes of Garth Agarwen? It was the first space to get the splitting up treatment but has never been revisted to get the scaled instance treatment. It traditionally was always the second instance players would get to while leveling. It sounds like the Fornost revamp will totally make GA irrelevant in the short term. I'd love to know if there's any plans to make it relevant again any time soon.

I think GA will continue to be the 2nd instance cluster that most new players encounter because it is free.
Questing in LL naturally directs new F2Pers towards GA.

Based on my limited experience, it doesn't seem like too many F2P get ND right away. Evendim seems to be the preferred 1st quest pack purchase. Maybe they'll have a sale on the ND quest pack to coincide with this release.

Regardless, I am very happy that we have another set of scaling 6-man instances to run! I hope the loot adjustments are enough to entice people to continue to run it after the novelty factor of the revamp wears off.

Fornost is next on our upgrade train as we march up through the instances of LOTRO. It's a gigantic instance (I think larger than Rhode Island)

As a native of Newport, Rhode Island I would say Fornost is NOT larger than Rhode Island. The only thing similar between Fornost and Rhode Island is that they are both corrupt to the core, though here too, Rhode Island is more so!

Originally Posted by brunnhilda

So sad, Let the dumbing down of content continue!! Huzzah!!

Kind of a knee jerk response isn't it? Or were you regularly running Fornost and are genuinely disappointed that you and your level appropriate six man group (somehow frozen in progression) no longer have their six hour playground? I'm one of those "anti-dumbing down" advocates/complainers (see most every other post I've ever made), but bringing an old unplayed instance back into playability hardly seems "dumb."

Er, that said, can we get a three man version?

Originally Posted by FromgalTheMinstrel

Please, cannot we have some scaling without making the instance so linear?

I think this is a very good point.
I like the epicness of Carn Dum and Urugarth and I hope that if these two will ever be revamped that they stay like they from a layout and progression point of view but just get scaling added.

Originally Posted by Bramor

Actually that's not right. The only way you can go to the main courtyard straight away is if you have been in Carn Dum before and gone through the slave pens all the way up to Barashal and to the Morroval boss above the town to get the keys that open the shortcut gates on the way to the main courtyard.

The scaled instances really aren't much different. You can do each part in sequence or take a shortcut by jumping into a later part. The only difference is that instead of having a "key to whatever" on your keychain to take the shortcut, you now have a deed that acts as gate to the advanced parts of the instance.

I do think that the keys add a lot of atmosphere to the instance. While there are several sections within Carn Dum (courtyard, sewage, Barashal, tower, ...) it still feels more like one big place than the chopped GB or GA.
I think this is a part that really should be kept and keys and locks do help around the problem of it taking a long time.
Otherwise the instance are being played for the experience once and only for loot/marks after. Going into CD still gives me a total different feeling than going in there just for marks or the fun of playing some group content. I am going in there because it is CD and it gives me this feeling of being in an epic and evil place.

Originally Posted by Lestache

No fallacy in my statement - just a simple declaration that I would prefer developer time be spent making new content rather than remaking old content. I never said (or even implied) that new content would necessarily be better content.

From my perspective as someone who is lucky enough to have done all the instances in the game on-level, revamping and scaling old instances doesn't add much to the game for me, so I'd prefer that brand new instances be developed as well. I'm only one person, and someone who has no power over the decisions that Turbine makes, so I understand that I'm not always going to get what I want. I also understand why other people - especially those who never experienced any of the older instances at their original levels - do like scaled instances.

I was simply replying to the question of "how could anybody be against scaling?"

That makes some sense I suppose. Let me ask you this though: When was the last time you ran Fornost? My guess is it was years ago. Scaling instances allows replayability for us veteran players. I would rather rotate through a bunch of instances rather than just running the two or three that are currently at endgame. And for the new players who would have otherwise just skipped past Fornost, they can now experience it.

these bits give me some hope that this won't be a total trainwreck:

All of that informed Fornost’s split, which has been done in a very linear manner. The goal is that if you played the four spaces back to back, it would feel very similar to having played one giant instance.

Except for water, each instance is gated by a one-time deed to complete the one before it. There's no advance credit if you've done it before.

the splitting up of instances still makes me very sad. you talk about "different eras" of MMOs and getting with the times, so to speak, but the old era was, quite simply, better. don't give up on it so quickly. we want MORE Carn Dums, not these itty-bitty unsatisfying hatchet jobs. I take exception to this as well:

While we know there are those out there who are loathing Fornost being chopped up, it was something that needed to happen. Every bit of content out there has a target play number and a level of attention that makes it useful and relevant to the game and player base. Fornost was flatlined.

it did not *need* to happen. while I very much respect, and more importantly share, the desire to see instances get a player's time, I respectfully submit that it is not the length of the instance that is the primary problem but the difficulty in getting groups on the same page caused by the advanced pace of levelling you have forced on players with a ton of added quests, 18 million types of bonus xp we can't avoid, reduced xp curve, skirmishes, everything on landscape having been made faceroll easy on top of an aggro radius nerf, and many other things. it is effectively impossible not to level past quests you're working on, to say nothing of the instances designed for those levels. you have created, or at the very least greatly exacerbated this problem with the direction you have chosen to take this game over the past 2-3 years, and this is merely trying to cure the symptom rather than the disease, and trying to cure it with the same poison that has caused the sickness in the first place! while scaling the instance will undoubtedly see fornost get more play, I don't think you should take that as a sign that it needed to be split. that's an extra variable, and one that I don't think needed to be introduced to make the scaling endeavor successful. a layout as you've described in the diary as a single instance with locks like carn dum i think would have been equally successful and, in my opinion, would have been much, much, MUCH more welcome. I beg that you please take this into consideration as you contemplate freshening up old instances in the future, and design new instances.

Originally Posted by Lothirien

That makes some sense I suppose. Let me ask you this though: When was the last time you ran Fornost? My guess is it was years ago. Scaling instances allows replayability for us veteran players. I would rather rotate through a bunch of instances rather than just running the two or three that are currently at endgame. And for the new players who would have otherwise just skipped past Fornost, they can now experience it.

I ran fornost on level thru a few levels over, many many times.
I don't need or want re-playability for things I've ran dozens of times, nor do I think most people do either.
I would rather they add new content, instead of "scaling old content".
If turbine would spend resources making new content, then we wouldn't have only 2-3 instances to run at lvl cap.
Its the players fault if they skipped fornost when they get around the required level to run it, its a challenging instance, so people don't run it.
The amount of money and time spent on moria revamp could have been used to add some more land mass and another 2-3 instances I bet. Or they could have made 4-5 new instances within existing zones.

If scaling is to be done, then our toon is what should be scaled back, so as to experience the content at the level requirement that it was designed for, in other words, if your lvl 75 and go run the rift, your lvl is scaled back to lvl 50.

Kinda off-topic, but now that Fornost has been revamped, there's just one lonely instance sitting in the "other" category of the instance finder, the Goblin-Town Throne Room. Is there any plan to do anything with this? I've always scratched my head as to why it's a separate instance when it's just a few rooms. It could be incorporated with the rest of the Goblin-Town instance. And it's not really a 6-man instance to begin with, you can easily finish it with 3 people on-level.

Originally Posted by Lothirien

That makes some sense I suppose. Let me ask you this though: When was the last time you ran Fornost? My guess is it was years ago. Scaling instances allows replayability for us veteran players. I would rather rotate through a bunch of instances rather than just running the two or three that are currently at endgame. And for the new players who would have otherwise just skipped past Fornost, they can now experience it.

This person expresses my feelings fairly well:

Originally Posted by AS1476

I ran fornost on level thru a few levels over, many many times.
I don't need or want re-playability for things I've ran dozens of times, nor do I think most people do either.
I would rather they add new content, instead of "scaling old content".
If turbine would spend resources making new content, then we wouldn't have only 2-3 instances to run at lvl cap.
Its the players fault if they skipped fornost when they get around the required level to run it, its a challenging instance, so people don't run it.
The amount of money and time spent on moria revamp could have been used to add some more land mass and another 2-3 instances I bet. Or they could have made 4-5 new instances within existing zones.

If scaling is to be done, then our toon is what should be scaled back, so as to experience the content at the level requirement that it was designed for, in other words, if your lvl 75 and go run the rift, your lvl is scaled back to lvl 50.

I would add that I don't need or want to replay old instances for anything other than sentimental value, and I can already do that now with the remaining non-scaled old instances. I don't need a level 75 version of Fornost to reminisce about Fornost, because Fornost still exists. As much as I personally loved the Annuminas instances at 50, I didn't need level 65 versions of them to enjoy them again - I could've gone and run them any time that I wanted, albeit not on-level.

For that matter, as the game has evolved, so have the instances. The mechanics of the newer instances (especially the raids) are tougher and more advanced than the mechanics were in SoA. As a result, the players have evolved and become more advanced than we were four years ago (the addition of new skills since level 50 has something to do with this as well). To me, it's kind of like going back to my old elementary school and sitting in my first grade classroom but with adult sized chairs this time: just because the space has been redesigned to accommodate the older crowd doesn't mean that the material taught therein suddenly becomes any different, let alone more difficult.

That being said, it does appear that jwbarry has added some mechanics to the different fights that will make them different than what they are currently, so perhaps they won't be SoA-easy, but then again they won't be the same fights that people may reminisce about and look forward to experiencing again either.