Thread: My impressions

Spent a couple weeks in game now.... for whatever they are worth, here are my impressions:

The good:

1) Atmosphere: The modelling of Middle Earth I would say is excellent. Even the bits that don't really fit the original material (more on that later) manage to work without detracting from the atmosphere. The devs were gutsy to set this during the trilogy, but somehow seem to have made it work.

2) Quests galore! There are umpteen gazillion quests and I love it. Even most of the kill x quests have decent context, and most of the quests do not seem merely 'kill x'

3) Good gameplay. For the most part, the game plays well. More on the exceptions in a bit.

4) Crafting: I really like the mechanics for this. It seems fun and useful without detracting from conventional drops.

The bad:

5) Targeting. This drives me crazy. For some reason the game seems finicky as to when you will auto-target something hitting you or not. Also hit boxes seem similarly finicky. I am used to that with larger models but even man sized models seem to have a greater reach than my characters.

6) Rapid re-spawns. Fast re-spawns can be a good thing in some cases, but they seem particularly fast in annoying places.

7) "Rescue/defend" quests. Between targeting and respawn issues, I shudder whenever I see one of these. They might be ok if there was some way to ask the npc to hold back, but there is none. NPCs are particularly idiotic and will charge forward even into obvious potential ambushes, forcing you to be over-aggressive in pulling mobs to have a chance of success.. which of course means a high risk of over-pulling.

These might be meant for groups, but if they are, they are artificially set up that way. Getting to the npc solo is usually not a problem nor is clearing the area around where they are held.

8) Housing: While the neighborhoods are nice, most of them seem full, at least in terms of low end housing. The upper end 'kinship level' housing seems available, but presumably that is by expense and/or a limitation to be registered to a kinship? What is the point of quests that direct people to already full housing areas?

9) Stealth: Is this working as intended at the lower level? Obviously I can't check at the upper level yet, but it seems impossible to sneak up behind anything as a burglar without it noticing. It is still situationally useful for sneaking past, but the utility is limited by reduced speed and the fact it is usually easier to simply stay between agro radii.

10) Counter-intuitive classes. Burglars are apparently a support class rather than dps? The best AE class is a melee class? Some classes can't even do so much as throw a knife even though they are martially trained (this is particularly an issue with pulling and dealing with runners)?


That may seem more complaints than praises, but the praises are strong praises. It is a good game and very enjoyable. Only singing praises though would be dishonest and not entirely constructive, so gave the full list of impressions.

It does seem quite enjoyable so far

ill take it you are a burg...true stealth is not 100% effective but it is not broken. you simply have to make your attack quicker. enemies have a perception range where they will spot you if you are there for too long. simply attack as soon as you are with in range and it wont matter if you are spotted.

also classes are only counter-intuitive if you compare them to other games. in lotro burgs are cc and deduffers who use stealth and not necessarily a dps role. BUT don't let that discourage you if you. With the combo of CC and deduffing a burg can destroy mobs when they acquire more of their skills.

with that said, welcome to middle earth!

Originally Posted by fallenhalo

ill take it you are a burg...true stealth is not 100% effective but it is not broken. you simply have to make your attack quicker. enemies have a perception range where they will spot you if you are there for too long. simply attack as soon as you are with in range and it wont matter if you are spotted.

also classes are only counter-intuitive if you compare them to other games. in lotro burgs are cc and deduffers who use stealth and not necessarily a dps role. BUT don't let that discourage you if you. With the combo of CC and deduffing a burg can destroy mobs when they acquire more of their skills.

with that said, welcome to middle earth!

I am not sure how much sooner I could attack. If I try hitting attack any sooner I get an out of range message.

I am also not certain that you understand what 'counter-intuitive' means. Stealth is normally a class feature to enable a strong alpha and thus to facilitate dps. The concept of stealth being coupled with dps is very common in literature and other media. Hence it is intuitive to expect the class to be a dps class. Intuitive means 'deductible without knowing the answer.'

And note further that I am not saying it is a bad class. I haven't played it long enough to be able to make any meaningful conclusions in that regard.

I have also tried a few classes so far to around 20th. I haven't decided on a clear favorite yet, but there are no classes I have really disliked either. The burglar sounds intriguing, but sounds dependent on a group to achieve full potential and I am not sure how much time I'll have for grouping (this is true of rogue classes in many other games too, mind, albeit for different reasons).

Originally Posted by Torweld

I am not sure how much sooner I could attack. If I try hitting attack any sooner I get an out of range message.

I am also not certain that you understand what 'counter-intuitive' means. Stealth is normally a class feature to enable a strong alpha and thus to facilitate dps. The concept of stealth being coupled with dps is very common in literature and other media. Hence it is intuitive to expect the class to be a dps class. Intuitive means 'deductible without knowing the answer.'

And note further that I am not saying it is a bad class. I haven't played it long enough to be able to make any meaningful conclusions in that regard.

Later you will find that a burg is a top-end DPSser correctly traited.
That said, they can also CC and debuff quite nicely.

You will have choices depending on waht you want to do /asked to do. Some folks like to play their burgs as a pure support class, some other like to DPS. It's a matter of taste.

Important things to know about stealth success is that...

1) Detection is partially level based. Trying to sneak up on a higher level enemy will be harder than an even level or lower level enemy.

2) Risk of detection is also higher if you're in front of the enemy right in the direction they're looking. Circle around to their sides or back. If they're a wandering enemy or if they often change directions they face then use your distraction skill to stop them and make them face away from you.

3) Later on you get an improved stealth skill that lets you move faster while in stealth. It definitely helps.

4) Certain critters, like wargs and such, have an improved stealth detection. Take extra care when sneaking up on them.

You can get gear that will improve your stealth level which makes a big difference (I know you get a cape around level 30). Burgs will start doing lots of dps as you up your critical chance. You will be hearing the critical sound go off a ton. As you start getting skills based off a critical hit that DPS will go through the roof. The thing burgs aren't very good at is fighting groups (you need to keep stuns and debuffs on anyone you're not fighting and you get no Area of Effect damage) but 1 on 1 you can take things down very quickly.

Originally Posted by Torweld

Spent a couple weeks in game now.... for whatever they are worth, here are my impressions:

7) "Rescue/defend" quests. Between targeting and respawn issues, I shudder whenever I see one of these. They might be ok if there was some way to ask the npc to hold back, but there is none. NPCs are particularly idiotic and will charge forward even into obvious potential ambushes, forcing you to be over-aggressive in pulling mobs to have a chance of success.. which of course means a high risk of over-pulling.

These might be meant for groups, but if they are, they are artificially set up that way. Getting to the npc solo is usually not a problem nor is clearing the area around where they are held.

These have to be the worst type of quests in the game. The only way most can pull them off is either in a group or be of a higher level than the quest calls for