Thread: Impressions and critics about the game.

Hello.

I tried LotRO at launch, some years back. Found it rather good in many areas, but lacking in others. Enough things were lacking that I didn't feel like paying a subscription, so I dropped it.
Today, with the F2P system and the collapse in quality from the competition, I found that LotRO actually compared favourably, and anyway didn't require to pay, so it was anyway always here if I wanted to play. Hence I went back into the game.

I like the game I play to be the best possible, so I'm going to offer the best feedback I can, in the hope that it helps the game to improve. As constructive criticism is more important than simple praise, I'm going to spend much more time on the parts I feel that need to improve than the parts I feel which are already good.

The parts I liked

The lore
I have to say I'm very impressed so far with the respect of the lore. The rather subdued way magics and items are designed is a welcome change from the over-the-top usual pyrotechnics, and is very appreciable when you like Tolkien's work and its inherent subtlety. I particularly like the dread/hope system, which is a very nice way to combine game mechanics and fluff.
I'm also quite impressed with how the dialogues feels very much in tune with the LotR style. Good job.
It's been my main drive to be able to walk in Middle-Earth, see the sceneries and the roads people from the books have followed, and them actually be rather up to the task and following the spirit of the original creation.

Role-playing stuff
A bit tied with the above, but more in the design of the game. Housing, hobbies, titles, dynasties, cosmetics and the like. MMO have become too much fighting games and forgot completely the "RPG" part, this game still keeps quite a bit of it. That's a breath of fresh air from today's production.

Sceneries
Unlike many people, I don't find the graphics themselves impressive. But I do appreciate the sceneries and its one of the big pleasure of the game to walk around and see the nice places.

The old-school style
I'm not yet advanced enough to be able to judge if it stays true at high level, but so far the game has kept at least a modicum of the old-school MMO style. It's still a bit too casual for my taste, but with the utterly dumbed-down competition, having to be at least somewhat cautious when you fight three foes and not being able to teleport everywhere at the drop of a hat, is extremely welcome.



Things that I feel should be improved

Ok, time to enter the meat of the post. I'll point the part I feel inadequate, explain why, and say what I feel would be an improvement, why and how. Of course, it's still my own opinion, but well, that's the point of the post after all.

First, the very worst part :


Fighting is boring

The mechanics are good. The design is good. But the fighting is frankly the worst part of the game, and considering how a huge part of it is, it's a very serious problem. I tried to bring friends with me on the game, but this (and the next one) point are the things that acted as a brick wall, and so far I've been unable to convince anyone.
Why ? Because it's A) Very slow and B) Completely lacking in "visceral feeling".

A) The fighting is slow/unresponsive. When you push a key, the game can take a relatively long time to react (from half a second to a second and a half, which is pretty huge when it comes to the feeling of the game). On top of that, most attacks display a rather slow animation (the surprise attack of the burglar for example), and connect only at the end.
Reacting and pre-emptively acting is just a pain and frustrating, because you feel your character is just laggy and moving through molass.
Actions should happens the very moment you launch them. There should be absolutely no avoidable delay, and the animation should last only a split second, with the damages connecting much faster.

B) Animations and sounds are extremely lacking. It's actually a severe enough point that it goes beyond fighting and deserve its own section. So let's follow :



The game severely lacks "visceral feeling"

The second worst point in the game, which is quite a bit linked to the first, is the lack of "punch", "energy", "bang" of the actions. I'm NOT talking about "flashy" or the like. I'm talking about this "visceral feeling" that is hard to describe, but which comes with responsiveness, strength and speed. The problem on this part with LotRO is that animations are usually slow and unenergetic, and sounds lack "impact".
To take an example, trivial but revealing : if you're prospecting, your character tends to swing his pickaxe without a lot of effort, like if it was weightless. Samely, the movement is too regular, there doesn't seem to have any strength in it, and when it connect with the deposit, it just... stops, without impact nor recoil. The sound is samely very bland and more like if you just gave a light tap rather than a big blow.
It's the same with fighting animations and sounds. The latter are, again, mostly sounding like light taps. The former make me feel like my character just wave through the air, not putting any effort, strength or ferocity, and not expecting to actually connect with anything.

I'm deeply convinced that better sounds and animations could improve dramatically the general feeling of the game, giving it much more "power" and thrill. I know that this, combined with the unresponsiveness, is why the game feels so lethargic - a very common criticism toward the game, and the reason why I can't manage to bring my friends here.


Lack of visual polish

This one is a minor point, but I think it plays a noticeable role in the general feeling of the game.
Models, UI, icons and the like, just feel... rough, and sometimes clunky. The UI in particular feels very "windows-like", lacking in personnality and design. Icons are too small and are not as descriptive as they could be (yes I know we can scale up the UI, but it ends up blurry). Activating an icon is a bit too "boring".
In the end, it's a bit too subdued in term of feedback. The game, again, gives a rather anesthetic feeling.


Some small options for user comfort

I'm NOT talking about making things easier or shorter or more casual in any way. There is already far too much casualness, don't add any more.
But I'm talking about minor point that simply remove annoyance. For example, having to constantly re-activate the tracking mode after a disconnect or a death is just irritating. That's, again, very minor, but it adds up.


Here, I have described my main good points, gripes and advices about the game. I hope they will be constructive, and I'd be delighted if they help to improve it.
I can't insist enough about upgrading the responsiveness/visceral feeling of the game. I'm deeply convinced it would be the single best improvement that would increase the fun tenfold.

totaly agree
+1

I agree with your comments about the visceral feel... something I never really thought about. This issue is glaring when you are in the middle of crafting 100 items and the sound + animation are completely out of sync.

Your comments about the combat need addressing though. Part of what you are perhaps not understanding is that the combat system is BASED on this... skills named "Immediate" act as animation interrupts. Without going too far into it, a skilled player learns how to put out as much dps as possible by chaining skills correctly. A burglar, for example, uses Addle as an interrupt of the Flashing Blades skill, which is high damage but long animation. A Guardian's burst dps is based on a chain: sting>stagger>retaliate>overwh elm.... if a guard was to accidentally hit a sweeping cut AOE in the middle of that burst chain then the chain would be inefficient.

So my point is, don't confuse combat clunkiness with post animation delay, immediate skills etc... the very fact that you noticed it can help you to be a much better player in fact.

Totally agree with you. I know I can't write and explain my opinion as well as Akkalevil, but I'll try. Everything that Akk. said is completely true, but there is a point that was not mentioned that is something that has really bugged me since I first began playing this game: The armour, weapons, gear. It can be so stupid looking! And the pictures of the armour that you can buy or earn, the picture of the item rarely is what the item in reality looks like! Don't get me wrong, as I've gotten to a higher lvl, I have found some really good armour and gear that really looks great. But when you start out, and even at lvl 20, the armour just looks dumb. Having a cool look for my character is a very important factor for me in a RPG. I can't tell you how many times I have bought a item thinking, "Oh maybe this will be a good one, maybe this time I'll get something that doesn't look like I just jumped out of the bucket of discarded WoW ideas." Lord of the Rings has such a good look to it, and the clothing, and armour, weapons, and shields, are all very important. I would like them to make it so you can see what the armour/weapons/gear looks like, and see how it looks on you before you buy it, just like the cosmetics. I think that this should apply to items you aquire from monsters, quest rewards, ect. Then it would make it so much easier to decide what you want to keep, and what you want to try and trade, because more often than not, I will put on something, not like it, and then have no choice but to sell it instead trading because it's BOUND now to me. And a impovement would be nice in the way the stuff looks. Frankly, the gear in FATE looks better than this stuff. Leather armour is way to shirt-like and tight fitted,same with gloves, boots,etc. Everything that isn't plate armour looks way to close-fitted. In real historic times, leather armour was made with many layers were added to make it thick, because that was the only way for it to have any use for defense! So it would be thick, and therefore LOOK thick. Chain-mail should look like chain-mail and not like a bunch of hoop-earings overlaid on each-other. All I can say is, I really hope LoTRO inmroves the way the gear in this game looks, how you can see what the items actually look like, and see how they will look on you, before you equipe them. And one last thing, it would be really great if lotro would fix the glitches that make it look like your sword/spear/bow is going through your cape! An if they would make the shields actually have straps on the inside, so it looks like you are actually holding it, not that it's floating an inch from your arm. If they fix these things, I will be so happy. But even with these problems, lotro is still my favorite MMORPG, and the best video game I have ever played.

Originally Posted by wraithwarrior101

Totally agree with you. I know I can't write and explain my opinion as well as Akkalevil, but I'll try. Everything that Akk. said is completely true, but there is a point that was not mentioned that is something that has really bugged me since I first began playing this game: The armour, weapons, gear. It can be so stupid looking! And the pictures of the armour that you can buy or earn, the picture of the item rarely is what the item in reality looks like! Don't get me wrong, as I've gotten to a higher lvl, I have found some really good armour and gear that really looks great. But when you start out, and even at lvl 20, the armour just looks dumb. Having a cool look for my character is a very important factor for me in a RPG. I can't tell you how many times I have bought a item thinking, "Oh maybe this will be a good one, maybe this time I'll get something that doesn't look like I just jumped out of the bucket of discarded WoW ideas." Lord of the Rings has such a good look to it, and the clothing, and armour, weapons, and shields, are all very important. I would like them to make it so you can see what the armour/weapons/gear looks like, and see how it looks on you before you buy it, just like the cosmetics. I think that this should apply to items you aquire from monsters, quest rewards, ect. Then it would make it so much easier to decide what you want to keep, and what you want to try and trade, because more often than not, I will put on something, not like it, and then have no choice but to sell it instead trading because it's BOUND now to me. And a impovement would be nice in the way the stuff looks. Frankly, the gear in FATE looks better than this stuff. Leather armour is way to shirt-like and tight fitted,same with gloves, boots,etc. Everything that isn't plate armour looks way to close-fitted. In real historic times, leather armour was made with many layers were added to make it thick, because that was the only way for it to have any use for defense! So it would be thick, and therefore LOOK thick. Chain-mail should look like chain-mail and not like a bunch of hoop-earings overlaid on each-other. All I can say is, I really hope LoTRO inmroves the way the gear in this game looks, how you can see what the items actually look like, and see how they will look on you, before you equipe them. And one last thing, it would be really great if lotro would fix the glitches that make it look like your sword/spear/bow is going through your cape! An if they would make the shields actually have straps on the inside, so it looks like you are actually holding it, not that it's floating an inch from your arm. If they fix these things, I will be so happy. But even with these problems, lotro is still my favorite MMORPG, and the best video game I have ever played.

Yes, I agree with you and the earlier post that the gear is a very important aspect of the game, but considering how your levels are bigger than 20, I expected you to know that there is a way to see armour/clothing/anything in a small dressing room that appears when you hit these buttons: CTRL + Left click of the mouse on the item that you would like to try on. If you do that, it will show you that piece of gear on your body, but watch out when you're wearing robes already, because leggings cannot be seen under the robe

Yeah, I am higher than lvl 20, but I am still a learner of the game. I know probably about as much as an anteater with brain damage. Lol. Thanks for letting me know about the ability to see the armour on you before you buy/equip it. That'll help a ton.....guess I should edit my post now.....so I don't look like a complete idiot to everyone.....

Originally Posted by Akkalevil

A) The fighting is slow/unresponsive. When you push a key, the game can take a relatively long time to react (from half a second to a second and a half, which is pretty huge when it comes to the feeling of the game). On top of that, most attacks display a rather slow animation (the surprise attack of the burglar for example), and connect only at the end.
Reacting and pre-emptively acting is just a pain and frustrating, because you feel your character is just laggy and moving through molass.
Actions should happens the very moment you launch them. There should be absolutely no avoidable delay, and the animation should last only a split second, with the damages connecting much faster.

Hrm. This boils down to LOTRO having combat similar to old-school single player RPGs, as opposed to combat like in an action console game. This was a conscious design decision. As far as the interface goes, just use one of the many custom interfaces, either a whole skin, or individual components, available at lotrointerface.com and most of the UI issues go away.

Combat is pretty slow and bad compared to many other MMOs. It's just the way they made it - slow and somewhat boring. Some classes may feel faster becuase they have more instant skills. Some people will defend the combat, but many of us will agree with you it is not that great. You can get used to it though.