Thread: Solo'ers suffer to much. Bring in 1 man end game instancing.

I just did some number crunching. Comparing the Orthanc single target DPS set to the Great River crafted armor for a champ:

GR:
5796 Mastery
284 Agi
338 morale (530 with contribution from vitality)
64 Vit
2040 Finesse
112 ICPR
672 Crit (1169 with agi contribution)
740 power
4995 Armor

Delulagos:
8678 Mastery
188 Agi
183 Morale (789 w/vit contribution)
202 Vit
2136 Finesse
1338 Crit (1667 w/ agi contribution)
57 ICPR
160 Power
5237 Armor

Note that this is also using the full GR set, which wastes a lot of stat slices on power. You can drop power and add some Mastery and morale by using some Theodred pieces instead, not to mention that some one-shot recipes are often for sale on the AH that are also great pieces (Graven Full Helm of Resolve, Scorched Armor). Other classes might not have this issue to the same extent (the cloth armor doesn't waste a bunch of slices on power for example).

Originally Posted by Gilean-EU

It would be nice if people could discuss HOW in their opinion soloers could have end-game content and comparable rewards, but most people don't seem to think that soloers and comparable rewards belong even in the same sentence.

Now that is just completely false. The discussion from "raiders" that I see going on here is that "soloers" would need to put in the same time and effort to get comparable gear. Yet the idea of something taking weeks was put down by "soloers". Now you have said doing something like soloing an elite master is far too hard for your average soloer. Well, I'd expect someone to be able to do something like that if they want comparable gear. I would also expect it to take them time. My raid alliance schedules raids for 5 days a week, 3 hours each time (yet we continue to get junk every week...). But when it's suggested soloers do the same, well, it's not been received well. This leads to the impression that some want good gear for very little work and that is what people have a problem with. You want the best? Well do the work. I don't care if it was through a equal solo method that Turbine devises or raiding. So it has nothing to do with "most" people thinking that soloers and comparable rewards belong in the same sentence. That sounds like sour grapes to me.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Let me know when solo has gear close to the level of raid gear.

Great River crafted jewelery and Theodred rep items. The difference between their stats and the few worthwhile Orthanc pieces is small. The difference in the time, effort and difficulty of acquiring them is a vast chasm.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

What I asked for were new solo instances that would be at the difficulty of personal challenges we have now and so would reward the soloer for his skill and effort at defeating the solo challenge.

Let's have a think about the challenges the devs would face in achieving this.

First, balancing it for 9 classes. What is easy for a WDN can be hopeless for a BRG. Death From Below (perhaps the only example of a truly challenging non-skirmish solo instance) showed how hard this is. Realistically, it can't be done. So there would need to be some class-specific mechanics and instance variations. That's a whole lot of work there - as pointed out above, there are only 9 lvl 75 instances in the game right now.

Second, what difficulty level do you pitch it at? Someone with quest gear? With Limlight/Great River gear? Ettenmoors gear? With some skraid jewels? With Skirmish armour, Draigoch armour? Maxed traits? F2P limitations? 2A LIs? 3A? The range is so vast that the concept of an "average" is so vague as to be meaningless. And that's just gear, not skill. No doubt you would personally set the standard (based on your gear/capabilities) higher than someone like Gilean (who considers a single Elite Master to be too much).

In the end you and Gilean are asking for the same thing - a route to better gear which pretty much matches your skill level and how you already play. But it is clear that - despite you both apparently asking for the same thing - you each have in mind something quite different. This is the challenge the devs face. It's not just a difficult challenge to manage within an instance space, it's impossible.

Yet there is one way. Skirmishes. Soldiers balance class limitations. Tiering sets the difficulty. I have said on this thread and many other times that there should be gear sets available from T2 and T3 skirmishes. The poor rewards of T2s and T3s is scandalous.

But the truth is that even if awesome stuff was added to skirmish vendors using barter items dropping from T2 and T3 skirmishes, that wouldn't be good enough. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the difficulty of *T1* Attack At Dawn and Icy Crevasse was awesome to behold. It is very clear that a lot of players (Gilean is one, you are not, despite your arguing for the same thing here) want the best gear without having to make even one iota of additional effort beyond what they already do, nor are they willing to tolerate grouping with even one other person (Limlight) nor face anything tougher than the faceroll standard of landscape content (Attack At Dawn, or even Woodcutters outside Isengard, about which there were also complaints).

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

That's a whole lot of work there - as pointed out above, there are only 9 lvl 75 instances in the game right now.

I count 7.
2 Raids: Orthanc and Draigoch
2 6-mans: Foundry and Roots
3 3 mans: Dargnakh, Pits, Fanghorn's Edge

There are, to my count:
14 Scaled instances, 4 scaled raids.

4 3-man:
Halls of Night, Inn of the Forsaken, Library at Tham Mirdain, School at Tham Mirdain

10 6-mans
Annuminas: Glinghant, Ost Elendil, Haudh Valandil
Fornost: Water, Earth, Fire, Shadow Wings
Great Barrow: Maze, Thadur, Sambrog

4 Raids:
Helegrod: Drake, Spider, Giant, Dragon

There are also three daily solo instances in Galtrev. 3 solo instance dailies in Great River.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

First, balancing it for 9 classes. What is easy for a WDN can be hopeless for a BRG. Death From Below (perhaps the only example of a truly challenging non-skirmish solo instance) showed how hard this is. Realistically, it can't be done. So there would need to be some class-specific mechanics and instance variations. That's a whole lot of work there - as pointed out above, there are only 9 lvl 75 instances in the game right now.

It would only need to be one (or two if we want some variety) instance(s) that would spawn adds at suitable numbers/strength for the class.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

Second, what difficulty level do you pitch it at? Someone with quest gear? With Limlight/Great River gear? Ettenmoors gear? With some skraid jewels? With Skirmish armour, Draigoch armour? Maxed traits? F2P limitations? 2A LIs? 3A? The range is so vast that the concept of an "average" is so vague as to be meaningless. And that's just gear, not skill. No doubt you would personally set the standard (based on your gear/capabilities) higher than someone like Gilean (who considers a single Elite Master to be too much).

Tiering system comes into play here. T1, easy for the newbies. They get some small rewards from it. T2, harder for the newbies but fairly easy for veteran soloers. T3, the hardest level. All three tiers have challenges which would improve loot chances when completed but they'd increase the difficulty to do them. T3 loot would be no different to T2, you'd just get more at T3.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

In the end you and Gilean are asking for the same thing - a route to better gear which pretty much matches your skill level and how you already play. But it is clear that - despite you both apparently asking for the same thing - you each have in mind something quite different. This is the challenge the devs face. It's not just a difficult challenge to manage within an instance space, it's impossible.

That's why tiering is such a good idea. The only downside is that Turbine went with two tiers for instances and raids instead of three.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

Yet there is one way. Skirmishes. Soldiers balance class limitations. Tiering sets the difficulty. I have said on this thread and many other times that there should be gear sets available from T2 and T3 skirmishes. The poor rewards of T2s and T3s is scandalous.

True, that would be a way. Skirms definitely do need an improvement of loot. I used to run T3 skirms just for the fun of it until recently when I realised I was just doing the same boring stuff for absolutely no rewards.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

But the truth is that even if awesome stuff was added to skirmish vendors using barter items dropping from T2 and T3 skirmishes, that wouldn't be good enough. The wailing and gnashing of teeth over the difficulty of *T1* Attack At Dawn and Icy Crevasse was awesome to behold. It is very clear that a lot of players (Gilean is one, you are not, despite your arguing for the same thing here) want the best gear without having to make even one iota of additional effort beyond what they already do, nor are they willing to tolerate grouping with even one other person (Limlight) nor face anything tougher than the faceroll standard of landscape content (Attack At Dawn, or even Woodcutters outside Isengard, about which there were also complaints).

Yes, I suppose there would be. That's why I always thought that as difficulty tiers improved, so did the grind decrease for good loot. So say there's a nice ring for 20 tokens. A T1 run would give you 1 token. A T2 run would give you 3 tokens. A T3 run would give you 5 tokens. Challenge completion could double those tokens. Loot still accessible in a viable way and everyone is rewarded.

Originally Posted by Cuurth_pTeele2

I count 7.

Thanks for the clarification, I just picked a number out of the air

As well as the 3 Galtrev solo repeatables there are 3 in Great River. It's reasonable to assume that these are set at what Turbine considers to be a suitably accessible level of difficulty. So the sort of solo instance Dorothir and Gilean suggest would have to either award raid-quality gear for stuff as easy as these 6 instances, OR up the difficulty. We know that Death From Below was hard enough to cause complaints. We know that there is a very limited tolerance for repeating content (Dorothir baulked at grinding 100g).

So where does this leave the devs? How do they square all these issues?

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

(Dorothir baulked at grinding 100g).

Actually, I baulked at someone telling me I only need to grind enough money to get 2 FA symbols and 2 Clasps. That's over 1500g. To put that into comparison, that's pretty much me grinding 100 foundry runs for 50,000 meds to get enough Greater Empowerments to sell for that gold. And that's not even solo.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Tiering system comes into play here. T1, easy for the newbies. They get some small rewards from it. T2, harder for the newbies but fairly easy for veteran soloers. T3, the hardest level.

Nice in theory. A nightmare in practice. How do you define the levels here? % of players? That's no different to the current system since someone unable to complete T2 or T3 is inevitably going to baulk at the number of runs required at T1. And make no mistake, the number of T1 runs would have to be *significantly* higher than the number of T2s or T3s or no-one will bother with T2 or T3 - just as currently happens with skirmishes.

No doubt you would set T3 at precisely the level you can personally currently manage. Co-incidence! . Gilean would set T3 much lower. In the end you're both just asking for the game to be redesigned to give you better rewards for the way you already play and the skill level you currently play at.

And anyway you are asking the devs to re-invent a system when they already have a system in place. Personally I'd have made the 3 Galtrev repeatables and the 3 Great River repeatables as skirmishes (along with all the epic instances) and boosted the T2 and T3 skirmish rewards. This goes as far as the devs can along the path you suggest without re-inventing the wheel.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

Nice in theory. A nightmare in practice. How do you define the levels here? % of players? That's no different to the current system since someone unable to complete T2 or T3 is inevitably going to baulk at the number of runs required at T1. And make no mistake, the number of T1 runs would have to be *significantly* higher than the number of T2s or T3s or no-one will bother with T2 or T3 - just as currently happens with skirmishes.

Turbine can work that out. After all, they're the ones with all the data and the ones getting paid to do this work. They're lucky players even help them out with suggestions.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

No doubt you would set T3 at precisely the level you can personally currently manage. Co-incidence! . Gilean would set T3 much lower. In the end you're both just asking for the game to be redesigned to give you better rewards for the way you already play and the skill level you currently play at.

Numbers were arbitrary as examples. I was thinking more along the lines of what was easiest for people who can't do T2. Doing T1 and challenge 10 times would be simple enough. Had I wanted to make it in my favour, I would have said T3 gives 20 tokens and the challenge gives 40.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

And anyway you are asking the devs to re-invent a system when they already have a system in place. Personally I'd have made the 3 Galtrev repeatables and the 3 Great River repeatables as skirmishes (along with all the epic instances) and boosted the T2 and T3 skirmish rewards. This goes as far as the devs can along the path you suggest without re-inventing the wheel.

So we go with re-vamping skirms then. I don't really care how they do it, as long as they do it.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

Thanks for the clarification, I just picked a number out of the air

As well as the 3 Galtrev solo repeatables there are 3 in Great River. It's reasonable to assume that these are set at what Turbine considers to be a suitably accessible level of difficulty. So the sort of solo instance Dorothir and Gilean suggest would have to either award raid-quality gear for stuff as easy as these 6 instances, OR up the difficulty. We know that Death From Below was hard enough to cause complaints. We know that there is a very limited tolerance for repeating content (Dorothir baulked at grinding 100g).

So where does this leave the devs? How do they square all these issues?

At this point I think I'm with Cuurth's lengthy post above, with some tweaks/my interpretation of it:

Create one or more solo-only instances (number equal to the current number of level-cap raids available).

Set the difficulty to be equivalent to or (preferably) harder than a solo Icy Crevasse T3 skirmish.

No skirmish soldier allowed.

Have 2-3 trash pulls prior to each "boss".

If you happen to die on a trash pull, all the trash in that pull respawns.

If you open a different instance or log out, everything respawns.

Have 5-6 bosses in the skirmish, each with his own lock. You have one week to beat them all, or your locks reset and you start over. Of course, this also means that you can only beat each boss once a week per character.

The first boss is the easiest, but still only a small percentage of the community that this content is tailored for will be able to beat even the first boss in the first 2-3 weeks after release.

It will take 3-4 months before anyone beats all of the bosses, and even then it will only be a very small percentage of people who do.

Some (most?) people - even those that may consider themselves very good at the game - may never beat all the bosses on-level. (Snark warning: given human nature, it's very likely that most individuals' inability to beat the content will not be their fault.)

Each boss has his own loot table, but since this instance is designed for everyone there will be loot for all 9 classes and you may go weeks (or even months) without seeing a single usable piece of loot for your class. There will also be loot that no class will want.

When you finally do get some usable loot, you'll hope that it's significantly better than the stuff your level 7 hobbit crafted for you a while back. You may be disappointed.

The first person on each server to clear this instance at the hardest difficulty setting will get a special title. Everyone who isn't that Warden will be upset.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

No doubt you would personally set the standard (based on your gear/capabilities) higher than someone like Gilean (who considers a single Elite Master to be too much).

Now as it seems like I get accused here, I feel I must defend myself... I haven't been talking about me personally here, but soloers in general. Soloers who are seen to ask help killing some tougher signatures in normal landscape quests. But I do that sometimes, think others and speak with "their mouth".

Personally, I haven't had problems with landscape (solo) quests where I have needed to get help. I can play all 9 classes better than average soloer, I am quite sure. I have been playing 5 of them since April 2007, and 2 of them since Moria launch. I have completed said Death From Below with all classes on-level (except I am not 100% sure if I did that with burglar at 65 since I did that with him when level cap was already raised so I might have been 66).

So, when I give impression that elite master is too much, it's because elite masters are not meant to be soloed in the first place. When talking about Limlight Gorge EM's, that is not solo content, that's group content. I can solo those but I don't get any extra rewards from that, it just takes a long time and I get what, 60 silver?

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

It is very clear that a lot of players (Gilean is one, you are not, despite your arguing for the same thing here) want the best gear without having to make even one iota of additional effort beyond what they already do, nor are they willing to tolerate grouping with even one other person (Limlight) nor face anything tougher than the faceroll standard of landscape content (Attack At Dawn, or even Woodcutters outside Isengard, about which there were also complaints).

Again, I must correct you here. I have NEVER said I want the best gear without need to make bigger effort. Never. Then, I did enough LG dailies to get titan-slayer (advanced) deed done with 9 characters, which also means I did the starter quests. (but that is not the point: true solo path should not contain group content). Also I have never complained about those woodcutters.

Just to correct some false assumptions/claims here...

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

In the end you and Gilean are asking for the same thing - a route to better gear which pretty much matches your skill level and how you already play. But it is clear that - despite you both apparently asking for the same thing - you each have in mind something quite different. This is the challenge the devs face. It's not just a difficult challenge to manage within an instance space, it's impossible.

Yet there is one way. Skirmishes. Soldiers balance class limitations. Tiering sets the difficulty. I have said on this thread and many other times that there should be gear sets available from T2 and T3 skirmishes. The poor rewards of T2s and T3s is scandalous.

Now this is something I would welcome gladly. There could be solo sets that you could barter with tokens that dropped in T2 and T3 solo skirmishes: T3 would drop twice as much tokens as T2 or something like that.

Also this could be expanded to creating those "1 man end game instancing" (for story reasons like said in other thread and so that all people could see those fabulous instance spaces that devs have spend so much time on): T1 would get you nothing but few Marks and/or IXP runes or relics (much like T1 skirmishes nowadays), T2 an T3 would again drop those "solo set tokens".

But creating those sets and putting rewards on T2 and T3 skirmishes would be a start.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Actually, I baulked at someone telling me I only need to grind enough money to get 2 FA symbols and 2 Clasps. That's over 1500g. To put that into comparison, that's pretty much me grinding 100 foundry runs for 50,000 meds to get enough Greater Empowerments to sell for that gold. And that's not even solo.

Welcome to the world of raiding ... you really think everyone who is in a raiding kin runs around with 2 FA LIs and 2 clasps in a matter of days? Orthanc is out for how long? Almost 6 Months. I've got 2 FA LIs ... one of which was a gift from my girl friend who won that symbol in a PUG Lightning T2 kill. And I've got 1 clasp, which I actually bought from the AH. Grinding Gold for 6 Months and investing the time I've spend into the raid would have gotten me 2 clasps and a number of symbols I cannot even count. If you think that raiding is getting you your equip in a blink of an eye, ou seriously get the wrong picture. Grinding Gold is actually the faster way to get your clasps and symbols, unless you either swim in DKP or jist roll for all the stuff and always are the lucky guy.

Originally Posted by Gilean-EU

My reality is that there is no (repeatable) solo content/solo instances where I can work myself towards best (solo) weapons/jewellery/armour in game in any reasonable way. ALL the best items are hidden behind group content, period.

Originally Posted by Tarmas_Eldar

Yet there is one way. Skirmishes. Soldiers balance class limitations. Tiering sets the difficulty. I have said on this thread and many other times that there should be gear sets available from T2 and T3 skirmishes. The poor rewards of T2s and T3s is scandalous.

Originally Posted by Gilean-EU

Now this is something I would welcome gladly. There could be solo sets that you could barter with tokens that dropped in T2 and T3 solo skirmishes: T3 would drop twice as much tokens as T2 or something like that.

Heh... it's fun to watch a thread loop back on itself:

Originally Posted by scrubmonkey

Effort would be better spent asking for the skirms to be rewarded more intelligently, because I think we ALL can agree that the reward structure is uneven and largely worthless for most playstyles.

I said that ON PAGE 3!!!

How many skirmish camp items are actually valuable? How unreasonable would it be to ask for the pieces that only drop on the 12-man skraids to also be on the vendors, not only for the soloists but also they guys who have run the rift skirm 11x for that )@#)* ring, and never seen it drop? How hard would it have been to work at least a couple seals into T3 solo and maybe a few more on the T3 encounters?

They have the technology. They can build it. They've never been good at attaching appropriate reward to higher effort though...

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Have a look at what he defined as the two camps and what I've been saying. You should see why I'm camp 1.

Do you even read your own posts? How are you in camp 1 when all you do is ask for the exact same loot? Like here:

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Probably. That quote just shows I want raid loot put into a challenging solo path.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

It's not about having the will to raid, it's about not having another 11 suitable people to raid with (for me at least). I can't believe you haven't even been reading what I've said and just fell back on the mistaken assumption that those who don't raid just don't want to.

I actually read what you say. In other posts I already said that you may consider to raid with 11 different people, so you can actually beat at least Lightning T2 and Saruman T1? Both encounters can actually be PUGed quite easily. Sticking to that 11 people that are not capable to pull this off, that IS your decision.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

That's fine. Not entirely sure why changing the name of loot for solo would make it acceptable to you but at least we're getting somewhere.

Here we go again ... you clearly are not in Camp 1. As you want the exact same loot. I proposed loot of the same quality (and you already have this with draigoch armor, GR stuff and things that be bought with gold; but all of this is still ignored by you)

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Organising and leading a raid =/= raid difficulty.

Who is not reading whom's posts here? effort =/= difficulty. Of course organising and/or leading a raid doesn't make the raid any more difficult, but it's still an effort that you have to invest prior to even entering the raid. So yes, raiding does need more effort than soloing.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Raid loot isn't there to reward people for organising and leading the raid. It's there to reward people completing it. If Turbine wanted to reward people for just getting a group together, they would have done so.

Applying that logic kills your whole point. Raid loot is there to reward people for completing the raid? There you go. If Turbine wanted to reward people for just soloing stuff, they would have done so.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

No, you don't. Seriously, if you were stuck with solo rewards only, you'd instantly see just how shoddy it all is. Group work will get you close to raid standard. Solo won't.

So you really want to tell me draigoch armor is shoddy? As is GR jewellery, GR weapons and star-lit crystal enhanced 2nd age LIs? All that stuff is "not even close" to raid standard. Forgive me, we are obviously not playing the same game.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

If this was a thread about PvP having raid level rewards introduced, I'd be backing that too. If this was a thread about raiders having solo level rewards... oh wait, raiding is the only pathway in-game that can give you pretty much all rewards. The only thing I think you can't get from raiding is PvP gear and I even said that the captain flag SHOULD be available for raiders too so they don't have to be forced to PvP for it.

So no, I'm not asking for solo to get the edge. I'm asking for solo to be improved and given some attention because that is the topic of the thread. I'm not going to derail it because someone might not have thought for a second as to why I wasn't suggestion improvements for other pathways.

Raiding (as in doing end game raids, unless you want to tell me that your 11 people can't even manage to beat a skirm raid) does exactly give you 6 pieces of armor that you cannot access without completing the raid. You have multiple options of getting comparable armor (wait, you did say you want 'comparable' armor, not the exact same one, right? As you are in Camp 1? Just to get that straight), through PvP (which can perfectly be done solo), crafting and draigoch set armor. The other stuff in that raid is either subpar to LG or skirm rewards or can be traded in game, so it is in theory (and even in practice) readily available for soloers.

So which exactly is the thing you cannot get by soling? You always say it's clasps and symbols ... but they ARE available. You just don't want to invest the effort (grind in this case) to do so. But just because you don't want to grind for it, it doesn't mean that it's not available (as always proclaimed by you). Everything that's up in the AH actually IS available to everyone, including soloers.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

What are you talking about? MMO doesn't mean you HAVE to deal with other people. It's a perk (and sometimes a downside).

Of course it doesn't mean you have to group, but one might come to think that it's perfectly valid for you not to get all the shinies if you restrict yourself to playing solo.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

And again, you're acting like people are purposefully doing solo only, as if it's a choice. Seriously, get it in your head that it isn't a choice.

Whose choice is it then? Who forces you to raid with 11 incompetent people? Get in your head that it is choice. No one (not Turbine, not me, not the raiding community and certainly not the game) forces you to go solo. Even guys with sub-optimal work schedules can find holes to go raiding. No one works 24/7 for 52 weeks a year.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Yeah, you're right. That's why Inspired Greatness doesn't exist in LotRO. Oh wait...

Inspired Greatness was certainly not in the game from the beginning. It was introduced years after Lotros debut and it was for sure not introduced because soloing suddenly became the intended play style. It was introduced because people levelling twinks had issues with finding groups for epic book quests. That is the sole purpose of inspired greatness.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

No, you seem to misunderstand. It's about scale. If you took the difficulty of some true solo challenges and upped it to raid standard, then that raid would be even harder than current raids. So true solo challenges are more difficult than a raid, relatively speaking. Hence why people want new hard solo content that rewards as well as a raid does. Just because raiders are forced to deal with other people doesn't mean they deserve better loot.

No you don't seem to understand the concept of loot being associated to the difficulty the encounter was made for. What is a "true solo challenge" for you? Soloing a level 50 raid? Soloing a three man instance? Of course it's getting more difficult if you go in there vastly undermanned. btw. I never asked for better loot. All I ask for is ditinct loot. I actually wrote that gear from solo challenges (should they ever be designed by Turbine) should actually have the same quality (if the effort to complete that challenge is the same, time and difficulty wise, just not be the exact same gear. Having a solo set (incl. set bonusses) for solo players would be perfectly fine for me.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Do you even read your own posts? How are you in camp 1 when all you do is ask for the exact same loot? Like here:

You clearly haven't understood the definitions, then.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

I actually read what you say. In other posts I already said that you may consider to raid with 11 different people, so you can actually beat at least Lightning T2 and Saruman T1? Both encounters can actually be PUGed quite easily. Sticking to that 11 people that are not capable to pull this off, that IS your decision.

You may be able to just summon a horde of raiders to raid with whenever you like. I can't. So the people I have to raid with are my only options. Unless you've got some spare raiders you've pulled out of your #### that you can send my way?

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Here we go again ... you clearly are not in Camp 1. As you want the exact same loot. I proposed loot of the same quality (and you already have this with draigoch armor, GR stuff and things that be bought with gold; but all of this is still ignored by you)

Actually, it wasn't ignored by me. I think you'll find I said 'that's fine'.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Who is not reading whom's posts here? effort =/= difficulty. Of course organising and/or leading a raid doesn't make the raid any more difficult, but it's still an effort that you have to invest prior to even entering the raid. So yes, raiding does need more effort than soloing.

And yet you insist that because it takes more effort to get 12 people and to lead them, raiding is more difficult. Make up your mind.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Applying that logic kills your whole point. Raid loot is there to reward people for completing the raid? There you go. If Turbine wanted to reward people for just soloing stuff, they would have done so.

Turbine just haven't been given the incentive to do so yet. That's what threads like these are about. I'm sure you can make a thread asking that leaders get an automatic extra bit of loot. I won't stand in your way, since it won't affect me and I don't like to oppose ideas that don't impact me, unlike some here.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

So you really want to tell me draigoch armor is shoddy? As is GR jewellery, GR weapons and star-lit crystal enhanced 2nd age LIs? All that stuff is "not even close" to raid standard. Forgive me, we are obviously not playing the same game.

[/quote]

Clearly not. I didn't realise you could get a full Draigoch set solo. But it's nice that you think all that stuff isn't shoddy. I'm sure you'd be perfectly happy to only use GR stuff and a little over half a Draigoch set... oh wait, no you wouldn't.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Raiding (as in doing end game raids, unless you want to tell me that your 11 people can't even manage to beat a skirm raid) does exactly give you 6 pieces of armor that you cannot access without completing the raid. You have multiple options of getting comparable armor (wait, you did say you want 'comparable' armor, not the exact same one, right? As you are in Camp 1? Just to get that straight), through PvP (which can perfectly be done solo), crafting and draigoch set armor. The other stuff in that raid is either subpar to LG or skirm rewards or can be traded in game, so it is in theory (and even in practice) readily available for soloers.

Comparable armour =/= worse armour. You try telling a raider that 4/6 Draigoch and full crafting jewels is comparable to their stuff from raiding.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

So which exactly is the thing you cannot get by soling? You always say it's clasps and symbols ... but they ARE available. You just don't want to invest the effort (grind in this case) to do so. But just because you don't want to grind for it, it doesn't mean that it's not available (as always proclaimed by you). Everything that's up in the AH actually IS available to everyone, including soloers.

And stat tomes are also available in-game with the Store too! You can also get RoI for free! You just don't want to invest the effort.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Of course it doesn't mean you have to group, but one might come to think that it's perfectly valid for you not to get all the shinies if you restrict yourself to playing solo.

And it's perfectly valid to assume you can get all the shinies through hard, solo play. Both are just opinions.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Whose choice is it then? Who forces you to raid with 11 incompetent people? Get in your head that it is choice. No one (not Turbine, not me, not the raiding community and certainly not the game) forces you to go solo. Even guys with sub-optimal work schedules can find holes to go raiding. No one works 24/7 for 52 weeks a year.

The fact that there isn't a load of raiders just sitting around waiting. You act as if I can just go 'oh, I think I'll do T2 Orth' and I'll just magic up a load of people. There is no one available. So my only choice is to either do a 4 man T2 Orth run or take sub-par people. Not everyone is surrounded by raiders. Get that into your head.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Inspired Greatness was certainly not in the game from the beginning. It was introduced years after Lotros debut and it was for sure not introduced because soloing suddenly became the intended play style. It was introduced because people levelling twinks had issues with finding groups for epic book quests. That is the sole purpose of inspired greatness.

Inspired Greatness allows you to solo. Turbine actually went to the trouble to allow people to solo group content. That is the point.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

No you don't seem to understand the concept of loot being associated to the difficulty the encounter was made for. What is a "true solo challenge" for you? Soloing a level 50 raid? Soloing a three man instance? Of course it's getting more difficult if you go in there vastly undermanned. btw. I never asked for better loot. All I ask for is ditinct loot. I actually wrote that gear from solo challenges (should they ever be designed by Turbine) should actually have the same quality (if the effort to complete that challenge is the same, time and difficulty wise, just not be the exact same gear. Having a solo set (incl. set bonusses) for solo players would be perfectly fine for me.

Then what are we even talking about? You're fine with soloers getting good gear from hard challenges. I want the same. The only difference is our opinion about which one is harder.

Why oh why does this keep coming up?

As it is, loot has become MUCH easier to come by. During SoA with the Rift and Helegrod, you took only top tier players into the raid and they BETTER be geared up prior to even looking at the raid. Couldn't inspect to see your gear, DEFINITELY not getting in. Didn't have your legendary traits finished, go away. Didn't have 10 across on all virtues, go away. And that was to get a chance to win a total of 6 armour pieces that dropped in the entire raid with 12 or more people rolling on the same item...

Just ran a half-kin, half-pug T1 Orthanc the other night. We had 3 people who didn't even know what vent was, kin-mates on under-geared alts, virtues that looked like my level 15 wardens, etc. We cleared 4 wings in 2 hours... Hey look, there are 12 people who can now get almost a complete set of raid armour... This is getting far too easy these days... T2, not a chance we could pull that off, but besides the chance at a first age, (which has now been deprecated since 2nd agers with starlights are nearly as good as 1st agers with starlights...), I have a hard time talking my kin into doing T2 runs at times.

I've done the solo path, I've done the kin-leader path, I've done the raider path. I don't expect TOP tier gear doing the solo path, I expect crafted gear. The kin I ran was a casual kin, I didn't expect TOP tier gear even though I had put in the effort to run a kin, help people out, run countless 6 mans that I didn't need a single drop from, I expected crafted/decent drop mixed gear.

Now, you can say effort = reward. But getting 12 people together with good gear, good stats, and more importantly knowledge of their class and how to work with 11 others. Then go into a raid instance, spend the time to figure out the mechanics and how to beat the bosses. And then beat it. That's what the reward is for. Being able to work together to accomplish something bigger.

And the same goes for real life. I don't sit at a desk all day at my day job doing solo work and get paid big bucks, I work as part of a team (whether as a member or a leader) to accomplish something bigger, that's what I get paid for. If I couldn't work as part of a team, who would be willing to pay me (besides to muck out stalls maybe)? Hell, if you can't work as part of a team, you can't even get a job at McDonald's.

We won't mention even that the gear that drops from some 6 mans is equal to the raid sets without the set bonuses. That was unheard of back in SoA, the 6 man sets were worse then crafted gear.

Originally Posted by Dark_Toad

It seems simple to me: if one is not running end-game raid content, one does not need end-game raid gear. Soloers (and I am mostly one of those), simply don't need raid-quality gear for solo content. I've quite comfortably soloed all of Dunland and reached level 75 wearing crafted level 60 gear and wielding third-age sub-65 legendary items.

It's like wanting a full set of plate armour to wear while fly-fishing.

What am I missing?

+ Rep to you m8 (never understood why a non raider, non end gamer needs raid end game stuff for?)


And as many already pointed out lots of goodies already come from common repeatables and crafting.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

The fact that there isn't a load of raiders just sitting around waiting. You act as if I can just go 'oh, I think I'll do T2 Orth' and I'll just magic up a load of people. There is no one available. So my only choice is to either do a 4 man T2 Orth run or take sub-par people. Not everyone is surrounded by raiders. Get that into your head.

Well said. The US covers many time zones, so we can't count on PUGs forming at will like Vodomir implies they do on the German servers. I'd happily be doing tons of skirmish raids, and Draigoch 1/week/character if the groups to do so existed on my first server in my time zone. They don't; once I got what I wanted for my meds/seals (Foundry runs are common even outside of east coast prime time) there was literally nothing left to do to improve my character's gear (U6 had not come out yet) so I stopped logging in to that server. To me, the point if this thread is to come up with a solution to that problem - if I have nothing left to work towards on a character a week or two after hitting 75, I'll shift to a different character/server/game (as I did).

Originally Posted by Kril

they BETTER be geared up prior to even looking at the raid. Couldn't inspect to see your gear, DEFINITELY not getting in. Didn't have your legendary traits finished, go away. Didn't have 10 across on all virtues, go away.

Adjusting to the current virtue cap, how is that different from today? Maybe my first server is unusually gear-snobby (and honestly, I suspect it is - glff on my second server rarely specifies "no anon", while that's almost universal on my first server), but back in Jan/Feb. when I still saw some non-Foundry activity in glff, inspections of gear and virtues seemed to be the norm. Even for runs like Foundry or Draigoch where it matters little if at all. That said, I do think this attitude is appropriate for ToO, from what I've heard. Though it's interesting to know that ToO T1 apparently doesn't require top notch gear/virtues, based on the example you described.

For what it's worth on the main topic - useful rewards for T2/T3 solo skirms would be great, new content along the lines of Death From Below would be great (I liked that one, even though it was very tough on my burg and easily farmed on my guardian, warden, and captain). Gear details - don't much care as long as it's useful, none of the ToO sets I've seen look all that exciting so "raid gear" per se is definitely not my concern. A variation of those never-used Ox Clan camp purple sets so that the set benefits a solo play style (emphasis on vit/morale/etc. over fate/finesse/etc. - speaking primarily as a burglar here) might be a nice starting point. Sounds like the U6 content is also pretty useful, I've just started puttering around with that on my burg - incentive to log in to that server is now non-zero again, at least for a while.

Originally Posted by J_Howell

Well said. The US covers many time zones, so we can't count on PUGs forming at will like Vodomir implies they do on the German servers. I'd happily be doing tons of skirmish raids, and Draigoch 1/week/character if the groups to do so existed on my first server in my time zone. They don't; once I got what I wanted for my meds/seals (Foundry runs are common even outside of east coast prime time) there was literally nothing left to do to improve my character's gear (U6 had not come out yet) so I stopped logging in to that server. To me, the point if this thread is to come up with a solution to that problem - if I have nothing left to work towards on a character a week or two after hitting 75, I'll shift to a different character/server/game (as I did).

Yeah both you and the OP are right about this - and it IS a pain to put raids together sometimes on this game - especially on certain servers.

Most of the people on my server for example tend to be European - yet I"m an American - and this can become a very big problem - even within my own kinship. And the people who act like you can just tap into an endless recruit-fest by using a global chat channel are exagerating to the max. That's simply not the case. And a lot of times it's nearly impossible to even form a 6 man group... let alone a raid.

But the answer ISN'T to make "1 man end game instancing" as the OP is asking for. If that's what you want, why even play an MMORPG. Just go grab a solo game off the shelf. It just makes no sense to do that on a genere that is built around the concept of a multiplayer challenge.

The answer IS trash that nearly worthless Instance Finder thing this game currently has and replace it with something worth a damn. This game needs a cross-server group finding tool that encompasses all instances and all raids. That way when players want to access group-content they can simply queue up and within a reasonable amount of time get put into the instance they are wanting to complete.

What ever negatives such a system would bring about would far be out-weighed by the benefits. It worked great on WoW. It can work great here too.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

You may be able to just summon a horde of raiders to raid with whenever you like. I can't. So the people I have to raid with are my only options. Unless you've got some spare raiders you've pulled out of your #### that you can send my way?

So you gonna tell me there are exactly only 12 people (including you) on your server ever doing the raid?

Originally Posted by Dorothir

And yet you insist that because it takes more effort to get 12 people and to lead them, raiding is more difficult. Make up your mind.

I suggest reading comprehension here?`I never ever said that a raid is more difficult because you've got to form and lead a raid. Please read "effort" as "work" and not as difficulty and you will clearly see that it requires more effort to organize a raid (building the raid, maintaining a raid planer and forum, scheduling the raid activities, maintaining the loot system, working on tactics that not only include yourself). Which of this additional effort do you invest when doing a solo instance? Exactly, the only effort you have is pressing Ctrl + F - I'm impressed. That's hardly the same effort.

Which effort are Soloers actually willing to invest into getting that armor that they so much desire? Somehow it seems you cannot be bothered with investing your time, as grinding has already been turned down by you (and I mind you, that raiding is a massive grind on its own). On the other hand you cannot be bothered with difficult content, as someone else already said that even LG daylies are too hard to deal with to actually get some gear. But yet all of the soloers insist on asking for the same equipment, as they invest the same effort. Which effort is this exactly? If you cannot be bothered with the overhead of oragnisation, don't want to invest a bit of your precious time to actually work for your character progress and don't want to face challenging content to get your gear? I can't help but to read this as "we want the very best gear the fast and easy way".

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Turbine just haven't been given the incentive to do so yet. That's what threads like these are about. I'm sure you can make a thread asking that leaders get an automatic extra bit of loot. I won't stand in your way, since it won't affect me and I don't like to oppose ideas that don't impact me, unlike some here.

Yes, they have been given the incentive over and over again. It's not like this thread was the very first time that someone cries that he cannot easily achieve all of the very best gear by simply soloing some instances. And as for the part that such ideas don't affect the raiding community. Imagine there would be a system where you could grind your raid gear by simply farming some solo instances. You would more than likely get your gear faster and easier, so why should people cope with raiding to get their equipment? This will have an impact on the amount of players that are even willing to do the raid, as they are not given the incentive to do the raid. If the raid community is thinned out, there will be less opportunities to do raids for those who actually enjoy playing in a group. So please stop telling me that it doesn't affect me in any way.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Clearly not. I didn't realise you could get a full Draigoch set solo. But it's nice that you think all that stuff isn't shoddy. I'm sure you'd be perfectly happy to only use GR stuff and a little over half a Draigoch set... oh wait, no you wouldn't.

So basically your definition of shoddy is everything that is not the very best item in the slot? Like if the difference between a raid piece and the second best was like 57 ICPR even that makes the second best item become shoddy? Maybe you should work on your definition of the word shoddy? I'm sure I do not wear a single piece of Orthanc jewellery (as it is basically #### for a champ, the very same class you play). The only difference would be the armor set (which can be achieved by running each wing T1; if you tell me that your 11 people cannot even run T1 than you clearly need other people to raid with) and the FA symbols and clasp, wich actually can be grinded by solo play (even more efficiently than by raiding), just because you refuse to do it, doesn't mean it's not possible.

You can get very good gear, that is close to being par with raid gear by just soloing. IF you were to grind out all the pieces that are available solo and compared that to a kitted out raider, you are at what? 95% (or lets say 90% if we are being extremely generous) of what the raider's stats are? If that is this ominous "severe gap" that makes soloers "suffer too much", than I can't help you - no one can.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Comparable armour =/= worse armour. You try telling a raider that 4/6 Draigoch and full crafting jewels is comparable to their stuff from raiding.

Comparable armor =/= the exact same armor. The difference is so marginal that I get sick of reading terms like "shoddy", "poor soloer's equip" or "ever widening gap" ... what exactly makes raid armor so superior that it affects your solo play? What exactly could a soloer pull off with raid gear, that is impossible with the gear suggested here?

Originally Posted by Dorothir

And stat tomes are also available in-game with the Store too! You can also get RoI for free! You just don't want to invest the effort.

Interesting read, I just can't remember to have complained about stat tomes of the price of RoI. Nice try, implying that I made such complaints. I'm actually fine with stat tomes being available in the store (I bought a bunch of them) and I'm also fine with paying for an expansion.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

And it's perfectly valid to assume you can get all the shinies through hard, solo play. Both are just opinions.

Maybe I missed the part where this was a single player game? This is a Multiplayer game and one should not wonder, that most of the development effort is put into multiplayer content and not into solo content. It's not meant to be soloed in the first place (at least not 100% of the time).

Originally Posted by Dorothir

The fact that there isn't a load of raiders just sitting around waiting. You act as if I can just go 'oh, I think I'll do T2 Orth' and I'll just magic up a load of people. There is no one available. So my only choice is to either do a 4 man T2 Orth run or take sub-par people. Not everyone is surrounded by raiders. Get that into your head.

Of course you don't go like "let's raid now and see who's willing to join". That's why it's an effort to actually build a raid. Maybe being less spontanious and actively recruiting capable people to raid with would solve your problem. Or trying to join a raiding kin. But guess all of that is just to much to even ask for.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Inspired Greatness allows you to solo. Turbine actually went to the trouble to allow people to solo group content. That is the point.

That's exactly NOT the point. As already pointed out, Inspired Greatness only works for epic book quests, and the idea was to allow people to enjoy the epic book storyline without getting stuck, because they do not find enough people in their level range to run the epic book quest with. That's the whole point of Inspired Greatness. Its use is limited to exactly that purpose. Unless you know of other group content that can be soloed with the help of inspired greatness.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Then what are we even talking about? You're fine with soloers getting good gear from hard challenges. I want the same. The only difference is our opinion about which one is harder.

I still didn't say that requiring more effort is equal to the content being harder.

Originally Posted by J_Howell

Well said. The US covers many time zones, so we can't count on PUGs forming at will like Vodomir implies they do on the German servers.

The maximum difference between time zones is what - 3 hours? And each of those time zones is vastly bigger than whole Germany. Excuse me if a lack of players sounds a bit odd to me. Every server does have kins/raids succesfully running Orthanc, so it is somehow possible.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

Yeah, you're right. That's why Inspired Greatness doesn't exist in LotRO. Oh wait...

Did you ever do some of the Epic six person group instances at level with six people like 1.14.15 before Inspired Greatness? Gone and tried 1.14.15 after the solo pass with a group of six at level. They are not the same instances. The current 1.14.15 is a face roll for any balanced group of six at level character that know how to work together as a team.

Turbine nerfed all these instances. Ripped out the interesting group dynamic scripting. Some the dynamics like endless waves of Angmarians which are bonded via a Blood Pack to heal the final Priestess can not be used. Turbine most of the mobs in these instances easier to kill. You knew about the runners or the Horn Blowers in 1.14.15 you could see to it they died before you had them all on you. Even if you failed this task. All you had to do is beat feet to the entrance room. Let the pathing AI crowd control some of them.

That is going to be the problem with changing the raid instances. One of every class can solo something like Orthanc. A full raid group without Inspired Greatness is going to face that instance every time. There will be no instance that is a challenge for a group.

IMHO - The groupers will all take their dollars and go something else to play. I doubt shooting Creeps in a barrel will keep them entertained for long.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

So you gonna tell me there are exactly only 12 people (including you) on your server ever doing the raid?

I'm telling you that there are no free, competent raiders floating about on my server just waiting to be picked up to help in a T2 Orth run. All the big raiding kins have either poached them or had them already.

And don't say 'just join them, then' because there's a variety of reasons why I wouldn't want to and they wouldn't want me to.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

I suggest reading comprehension here?`I never ever said that a raid is more difficult because you've got to form and lead a raid. Please read "effort" as "work" and not as difficulty and you will clearly see that it requires more effort to organize a raid (building the raid, maintaining a raid planer and forum, scheduling the raid activities, maintaining the loot system, working on tactics that not only include yourself). Which of this additional effort do you invest when doing a solo instance? Exactly, the only effort you have is pressing Ctrl + F - I'm impressed. That's hardly the same effort.

And why should effort come into play, here? You aren't rewarded for getting a group together, you're rewarded for completing the content. My point is that regardless of how much 'work' raiders do to group together, they still don't do anything nearly as difficult as some soloers do in their personal challenges, the same level of difficulty I would ask for at T3 Challenge in a solo method.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Which effort are Soloers actually willing to invest into getting that armor that they so much desire? Somehow it seems you cannot be bothered with investing your time, as grinding has already been turned down by you (and I mind you, that raiding is a massive grind on its own). On the other hand you cannot be bothered with difficult content, as someone else already said that even LG daylies are too hard to deal with to actually get some gear. But yet all of the soloers insist on asking for the same equipment, as they invest the same effort. Which effort is this exactly? If you cannot be bothered with the overhead of oragnisation, don't want to invest a bit of your precious time to actually work for your character progress and don't want to face challenging content to get your gear? I can't help but to read this as "we want the very best gear the fast and easy way".

Actually, I said the complete opposite in terms of challenging content. I would love if they stuck it all behind solo challenging content and made me work to understand how best to take it on. I don't think people should be rewarded by how much time or 'work' they put into it, though. I think people should be rewarded by actually beating it. Just because it may take more time and effort of some, doesn't mean they deserve more.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Yes, they have been given the incentive over and over again. It's not like this thread was the very first time that someone cries that he cannot easily achieve all of the very best gear by simply soloing some instances. And as for the part that such ideas don't affect the raiding community. Imagine there would be a system where you could grind your raid gear by simply farming some solo instances. You would more than likely get your gear faster and easier, so why should people cope with raiding to get their equipment? This will have an impact on the amount of players that are even willing to do the raid, as they are not given the incentive to do the raid. If the raid community is thinned out, there will be less opportunities to do raids for those who actually enjoy playing in a group. So please stop telling me that it doesn't affect me in any way.

So it would negatively effect the raiding elite because raiders might start to try the faster but more difficult (not less, like you say) solo challenges rather than keep raiding with their friends? You know what that tells me? a) You're under the mistaken belief that a raider can instantly do solo stuff, which is not the case and b) Raiding is clearly broken at the moment if the only reason people are forcing themselves into something they don't like is for the loot. Raiding shouldn't be about limiting options to push people into it, it should be about making fun raids that don't feel like a chore.

Maybe a thread about that could be made?

Originally Posted by Vodomir

So basically your definition of shoddy is everything that is not the very best item in the slot? Like if the difference between a raid piece and the second best was like 57 ICPR even that makes the second best item become shoddy? Maybe you should work on your definition of the word shoddy? I'm sure I do not wear a single piece of Orthanc jewellery (as it is basically #### for a champ, the very same class you play). The only difference would be the armor set (which can be achieved by running each wing T1; if you tell me that your 11 people cannot even run T1 than you clearly need other people to raid with) and the FA symbols and clasp, wich actually can be grinded by solo play (even more efficiently than by raiding), just because you refuse to do it, doesn't mean it's not possible.

My definition of shoddy is anything average or below. Yours seems to be anything with 1 stat or less on it. The fact you can sit there and tell me that 'GR stuff is perfectly fine and so is 4/6 Draigoch' and yet probably wouldn't be happy with having that stuff yourself tells me you're a little bit of a hypocrite. 'It's good enough for you but not for me' sort of thing.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

You can get very good gear, that is close to being par with raid gear by just soloing. IF you were to grind out all the pieces that are available solo and compared that to a kitted out raider, you are at what? 95% (or lets say 90% if we are being extremely generous) of what the raider's stats are? If that is this ominous "severe gap" that makes soloers "suffer too much", than I can't help you - no one can.

So you're saying that by only getting solo gear, you can reach 5.7k morale, 25.5k phys mast and 8.5k crit on a champ? I'll happily agree that solo gear alone can get you close to raid gear if you can show me that.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Comparable armor =/= the exact same armor. The difference is so marginal that I get sick of reading terms like "shoddy", "poor soloer's equip" or "ever widening gap" ... what exactly makes raid armor so superior that it affects your solo play? What exactly could a soloer pull off with raid gear, that is impossible with the gear suggested here?

It's not about pulling something off. It's about knowing your character is at the best stats available in-game. Lots of raiders do it all the time. In fact, lots of people do it all the time. Remember the grind for the Miniature Brass Anvil? Or other items that only had +1 stat on them and wouldn't make a real difference? All because people like to see their character at their best. Being limited by the people around you shouldn't be a factor.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Interesting read, I just can't remember to have complained about stat tomes of the price of RoI. Nice try, implying that I made such complaints. I'm actually fine with stat tomes being available in the store (I bought a bunch of them) and I'm also fine with paying for an expansion.

They were examples. I wasn't suggesting you made those complaints yourself. I was using the fact that stat tomes are ridiculously rare but people will say they're available in-game if you work for it to your idea that all loot is available as long as you gold farm for it.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Maybe I missed the part where this was a single player game? This is a Multiplayer game and one should not wonder, that most of the development effort is put into multiplayer content and not into solo content. It's not meant to be soloed in the first place (at least not 100% of the time).

And that is why people are asking for a change. There are people who have spent years in this game who are now finding themselves cut off for various reasons. They'd like a way to keep going but without relying on others. Just because this is an MMO does NOT mean the only option is to be pushed into grouping.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

Of course you don't go like "let's raid now and see who's willing to join". That's why it's an effort to actually build a raid. Maybe being less spontanious and actively recruiting capable people to raid with would solve your problem. Or trying to join a raiding kin. But guess all of that is just to much to even ask for.

You're still under the delusion that for some reason there are just swarms of people out there who can raid and are just looking for a kin or are waiting for that last person to join their kin to raid. My kin has been recruiting for months now, I don't think a single one has been a raider, despite the numbers we've taken in.

And asking me to join a raiding kin is to both assume I'd abandon friends in a kin for loot and to assume that a raiding kin would even take me (there's a variety of reasons why they wouldn't but I think only people on my server would know them).

Originally Posted by Vodomir

That's exactly NOT the point. As already pointed out, Inspired Greatness only works for epic book quests, and the idea was to allow people to enjoy the epic book storyline without getting stuck, because they do not find enough people in their level range to run the epic book quest with. That's the whole point of Inspired Greatness. Its use is limited to exactly that purpose. Unless you know of other group content that can be soloed with the help of inspired greatness.

So IG was added because the lack of people became an obstacle. My current situation is that a lack of raiders has become an obstacle.

Originally Posted by Vodomir

I still didn't say that requiring more effort is equal to the content being harder.

My mistake then. I must have just applied what someone else in this thread was saying to what you were saying. Since I can't be bothered to sift through all those posts again, I'll take your word for it.

Something tells me this thread is not gonna move forward anytime soon. Could someone lock it down?

Originally Posted by Fralin

Something tells me this thread is not gonna move forward anytime soon. Could someone lock it down?

True enough.

Like one of the posters I live in a different timezone from the most people in my kin. And by different I mean my 6 AM. = Top raiding time on my server. It means that I raid once a month with occasional pug thrown in

Do I think that I should get first agers for soloing T3 skirms - No, I don't
The thing is solo instances are much more difficult to balance because of the class differences. Your top super hard content might be easy for wardens, but very hard for the hunters, etc.

The Dragon set for most of the classes is on par with the OoT, My main is a Cappy and I regulary switch to the Dragon set when I am working with another cappy because of the mark bonus. All of my jewlery is either crafted or LG, so you don't need more then 2 people to get it.

So who was the coward who gave me unjust negative rep for my last post? Going to grow a pair and explain what exactly in my post were the three things you listed?

Originally Posted by Shadowbourn

But why not bring in more 1 man instance runs for gaining the top in game armor the same as the 12 man raids. Ideally i want to log in have my hour of game play not standing there trying to pug a position get no where and log off pi**ed off with the game but to log in hit my skirmish tab go into my solo instance run my instance get my token/s and save for that gear. Now ratio wise i'd be happy obviously earning less than a 12 man raid.

You seem to not be familiar with the new universal currency system, as that's EXACTLY what it does. You can run nothing but solo skirmishes and eventually barter for some of the best gear in the game.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...eveloper-diary

Originally Posted by Dorothir

So who was the coward who gave me unjust negative rep for my last post? Going to grow a pair and explain what exactly in my post were the three things you listed?

lol Doro.. I really wouldn't let something as meaningless as a forum reputation bar upset you. No serious person is going to pay any attention to such a insignificant silly thing. And I can tell you from experience that having a loaded reputation bar on this forum isn't an indictator that the poster conducts themselves in some pristine manner anyways.

So wear your negative rep like a badge of honor. That's what I would do lol

Originally Posted by gildhur

You seem to not be familiar with the new universal currency system, as that's EXACTLY what it does. You can run nothing but solo skirmishes and eventually barter for some of the best gear in the game.

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...eveloper-diary

Yeah this game actually has a very rewarding solo experience. It does a better job than any other MMORPG I've played at making soloable-content relevant to endgame.

Originally Posted by Jeremi

lol Doro.. I really wouldn't let something as meaningless as a forum reputation bar upset you. No serious person is going to pay any attention to such a insignificant silly thing. And I can tell you from experience that having a loaded reputation bar on this forum isn't an indictator that the poster conducts themselves in some pristine manner anyways.

So wear your negative rep like a badge of honor. That's what I would do lol

It's not the negative rep that really bothers me. It's the fact that someone out there decided to label my post as 3 things it wasn't, broke the rules of giving rep and didn't even bother to name themselves. I'll take negative rep where it's due but not from cowards who lie and do it just because they disagree with me. I'd report it for a rep check but the mods don't even bother looking at them now.

The limight jewellery along with crafted jewellery + armour isn't far off from raiding armour/jewellery. Throw in star-lit crystals on a 2nd age and you basically have a first age. Throw in +70 stats from stat tomes and all that crafted armour is now just as good as raid armour.

The solo play of end-game raid armour already exists.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

It's not the negative rep that really bothers me. It's the fact that someone out there decided to label my post as 3 things it wasn't, broke the rules of giving rep and didn't even bother to name themselves. I'll take negative rep where it's due but not from cowards who lie and do it just because they disagree with me. I'd report it for a rep check but the mods don't even bother looking at them now.

I understand what you are saying Doro, but a lot of times that Rep thing is just used as a popularity guide. If you say something people agree with, they give you rep basically because they liked hearing their own point of view echoed. That's really all it is. So I wouldn't get yourself worked up over it. It's not a measure of anything important. In fact, this forum would be better off if they just did away I think. It's kind of silly.

Originally Posted by timmyloo22546

The limight jewellery along with crafted jewellery + armour isn't far off from raiding armour/jewellery. Throw in star-lit crystals on a 2nd age and you basically have a first age. Throw in +70 stats from stat tomes and all that crafted armour is now just as good as raid armour.

The solo play of end-game raid armour already exists.

Yep I agree mostly, though I do think the raid armor sets are better than the crafted stuff.

Like I said in a previous post, LOTRO actually does a very good job at making solo play relevant to the endgame. Better than any other game out there I've played.

You can also build relics for your legendary items solo, and work on deeds solo too. Both of which can give you significant advantages at the end of the game as well. It's hard to run out of ways to improve your character on this game, rather you are alone or in a group. And that's a good thing.

But maybe as a compromise Turbine should allow players to use their Skirmish Soliders inside instances. That way soloist could more easily run tier1 3 mans by themselves to gain seals and medallions. That seems a fair way to address this issue to me.

Originally Posted by Dorothir

So who was the coward who gave me unjust negative rep for my last post? Going to grow a pair and explain what exactly in my post were the three things you listed?

Discussions about rep are likely to get this thread locked, but that wouldn't be such a bad thing at this point, as this goes in circles in this thread and others.

That said, while I don't agree with your point of view (and often dislike the tone), I didn't see anything in your post that in any way violated community guidelines. You should appeal, people shouldn't use -rep to mean "disagree" or "dislike. While turbine may well ignore your appeal, folks should face some risk for inappropriate use of -rep.

Maybe you and Volodir should take this one outside and settle it. You can go solo but get Inspired Greatness buff, he'll bring a raid along

Originally Posted by DelgonTheWise

Maybe you and Volodir should take this one outside and settle it. You can go solo but get Inspired Greatness buff, he'll bring a raid along

Just let the rest of us know where and which server so we can come and watch

Why people who don't have time to play raids are loosing time to read the whole threat and posting (It is pretty big, I stopped on the 3rd page)?

Why people who don't have time to play raids and want so badly to enjoy the full game content and gear are still playing lotro?

The facts are clear:

- Lotro is a friendly game for solo and raiders, but soloers cannot benefit the full game content and gear. The difference is not that great from my point of view, but there is some difference.

- I doubt turbine will ever change that, may be make the end-game instances available on skirms with different loot, but I doubt because many end-game instances depends on a group to work out the mechanics, even with weaker/easier npcs (no lvl 75 warden can solo RIFT last boss for example).

So, accept and adapt or go play another game, there are many nice games that one can solo everything to the core. Games that I would love to play, but with lotro I don't have time. lol.

PS: Someone please lock the threat.

Maybe we could end on this note? with an official statement?

Q12: Will you add solo option to (scalable) instances? - Jani Sjöblom
A: Skirmishes are our current solution to this request. Creating satisfying solo instances that present a measure of challenge is an extremely difficult endeavor due to a multitude of reasons: inherent class imbalances in solo situations in regard to damage and survivability, gear differential between two equivalent level characters is amplified in solo only situations, and the extremely vast bell curve of individual skill and ability at playing the game. Attempting to resolve any of those issues quickly ends up in a land of very large amounts of work. Tailoring to each class to remove that variable means building 9 times as many instances for example. We designed skirmishes with the soldier in large measure to use as a balancing tool to help flatten the playing field and the differential between classes and gear. It’s not something that we’ll say will never happen, who knows what the future holds and what bright idea is around the corner, but for now, with our knowledge of the challenges and our current solutions to them, this isn’t on the plate. - Joe “JWBarry” Barry, Senior Designer

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/featur...aa-june-1-2012

Originally Posted by Dorothir

It's not the negative rep that really bothers me. It's the fact that someone out there decided to label my post as 3 things it wasn't, broke the rules of giving rep and didn't even bother to name themselves. I'll take negative rep where it's due but not from cowards who lie and do it just because they disagree with me. I'd report it for a rep check but the mods don't even bother looking at them now.

That isn't true. I've had them check and fix two negative reputations in the past month or so. Send a private message off to them and get them to look into it... they'd be happy to fix it I am sure.

Originally Posted by hucklebarry

Maybe we could end on this note? with an official statement?



http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/featur...aa-june-1-2012

Good find, hucklebarry.

Looks like jwbarry has a good handle on things - surprise surprise, the MMO developer knows how difficult making solo end-game content is better than we do. Bell curve, differences in classes, potential for creating 9 times the work... looks like he hit all the major points.

Now, if someone could find the dev response from a while back (I think it was jwbarry again, but I'm not sure) about why they generally try to reward group content with better rewards than solo content, and sticky both responses at the top of all relevant forums, maybe we can all talk about something else.

Originally Posted by Lestache

Now, if someone could find the dev response from a while back (I think it was jwbarry again, but I'm not sure) about why they generally try to reward group content with better rewards than solo content, and sticky both responses at the top of all relevant forums, maybe we can all talk about something else.

I would actually like to see this too. I know there was one from the Rift devs (at launch) that was impressive and very clearly worded that while they intended to provide solo fun, there would be clear advantages in gear if you raided/fellowshipped. Its one of the reasons I subbed for a year when they launched. They had a clearly stated direction that everyone could turn to when these discussions came up.