Many farmed Durchest before its loot table got nerf'ed. Now it's over. Main motive:loot.
Extend that in a way that raids do not rewards players with the appropriate loot, aka the BIS, since there is a stupid confusion of solo gear and raid gear, and you sign the end of raiding.
BIS loot is part of the fun. Challenge, teamplay, character optimization, etc are enjoyable side effects.
But remove the BIS gear from the loot table and I'm sure not many will risk to face the trouble to coordinate schedules, to risk countless wipes after 2h spent in the instance, etc.
Therefore, if there are other ways to get the BIS gear, and thus with less constraints, I can assure this is the easiest path that will be favoured.
Now I repeat that according to me, the only way to solve that issue is to achieve a complete separation of solo gear with raid gear, the same way those both are currently separated from the BIS PvP gear.
>PvP gear is then optimal to do PvP. Solo gear optimal to do solo content. Raid gear optimal for group content.
> that way one community does not feel more entitled to get one precise set than the other.
I think that this thread would not even exist if there was a clear separation between the gear, instead of an unappropriate confusion. The clue is that there are less clashes between PvPers and the rest, than there are between the solo crowd and the raiding crowd.
Not much to say to this other than "wow." What is the correct number of play-hours a person should have to put in to "earn" a recipe? I guess one is not enough. Of course it would be if you got a recipe after one hour.
I do believe he was using random numbers, but sometimes it could be that long until you're lucky enough to have an item drop in a raid and win it.
So yeah, despite your protestations to the contrary, what really bugs you is that the other guy got one and you didn't.
No.
If it's work, why are you doing that part of the game? It's a game. It's supposed to be fun.
Work is not exclusive from fun. It's very possible to work at/for something AND have fun. People do it all the time.
Killing a Boogan somm'ers, 'cause they remind me of Bogarts.
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Originally Posted by Vulcan583
I don't really care that anybody can get the best gear in the game. I do care that the only way to get the best gear in the game is out of pure luck and not hard work. If you put an hour of your time in killing mobs in Rohan to get a bracelet, I don't think its fair that I put in 3 hours with 11 other people (total of 36 Man hours) and do not receive the same level of gear. If the challenge chests in a raid had a 36% to drop a bracelet and the world drop percentage was 1%, that would be fine. If we put in 36 hours and you put in one, we should be 36 times more likely to get the recipe.
Two things.
1) I can testify that unless you are extremely lucky, you will spend much much more than 1 hour killing mobs to guarantee a drop.
2) Your math needs work. If 12 people take a 1 hour bus ride. It does not make it a 12 hour bus ride. Each person still only put in hour. (well, it might seem like 12 hours if 3 year old Jeffery is on the bus, but not normally)
****Bogarts! We hates Bogarts!****
Best Mod quote EVER = "Closing the thread, as the OP has quit the forums." - Patience
I think that this thread would not even exist if there was a clear separation between the gear, instead of an unappropriate confusion. The clue is that there are less clashes between PvPers and the rest, than there are between the solo crowd and the raiding crowd.
They did that, it was called radiance. If you think raiders complain about gear now you should have seen it back then. I think that if you talk to any player that was around when radiance was in the game you would know that this is not going to be put back in the game.
I dont understand why some raiders want to be separated from the rest of the player base? The solo crowd is not clashing with the raiding crowd. Solo players do not want to deny raiders top level gear, its only the raiders that want to deny the solo players top level gear.
One of the reasons that there are few clashes between PvPers and the "rest" is that the majority of the rewards you get for pvping is title and renown based not loot based. Most pvpers I know pvp for the fun and challange of it not the loot. It would be nice if in this case the raiders would be more like pvpers.
Last edited by ThistleRose3; Feb 04 2013 at 11:50 AM.
They did that, it was called radiance. If you think raiders complain about gear now you should have seen it back then. I think that if you talk to any player that was around when radiance was in the game you would know that this is not going to be put back in the game.
Personally I see no problem with the Radiance stat. The devs back then said it was a good idea but badly executed. Alongside a new stat enhancing the solo playstyle, that would be solution.
I dont understand why some raiders want to be separated from the rest of the player base? The solo crowd is not clashing with the raiding crowd. Solo players do not want to deny raiders top level gear, its only the raiders that want to deny the solo players top level gear.
That sounds biased. The solo crowd also labels the raiding crowd as elitist jerks. The bracelet of the horse lord thread and this one clearly prove that solo players also deny raiders the top level gear, telling that what they do do not require much more effort than what they do solo.
A clear separation is needed. After all the only common element is the fighting vs mobs. For the rest, there are totally different playstyles, which demands different constraints. Equipment should be different as well.
One of the reasons that there are few clashes between PvPers and the "rest" is that the majority of the rewards you get for pvping is title and renown based not loot based. Most pvpers I know pvp for the fun and challange of it not the loot. It would be nice if in this case the raiders would be more like pvpers.
Perhaps but that's plainly forgetting that PvP'ers have a special gear which contains a special PvP stat: audacity. PvP'ers know that is solo'ers and raiders want to PvP, they'll have to get some audacity. There is a separation. Less clashes.
Hard work. Putting your time in. What's the difference? You think you should get something equally desirable for killing 100 landscape mobs because someone else killed 100 mobs in a raid (and it took them 3-4x longer to do it as well as the time commitment of 11 other people?)
What you have is a skewed sense of entitlement. Ironically, you call out the raid community for calling what they do "work" yet scoff at the RNG and your "bad luck". Methinks you really have no idea.
This is where these conversations go sideways: everybody's perception of effort vs. reward is correct....for certain values of "effort". Effort's a tricky thing to define in a game like this, because everybody will have a position/agenda based on their particular playstyle.
It's fine to base reward off effort....more effort, more reward. I think everybody's good with that as a concept. You can use that as a balancing metric between playstyles, so long as you have a constant value for effort between the two. The challenge is, what's the unit of measurement for "effort" that can apply equally to all playstyles?
Hardcore raiders aren't going to like this next part, but stay with me here...
At the end of the day, every playstyle has this in common: all that's required to play this game is the ability to react to stimulus. We're presented on-screen stimulus, and we react to it by pushing buttons. Push the right button or series of buttons, we win. Push the wrong ones, and we lose.
This isn't "difficult" behavior....rats can be trained to do the same thing. We need to start being honest about the effort involved in raiding (or soloing, for that matter)...raiding isn't "harder". It's all just stimulus/response.
It IS, however, more complicated. The stimulus is more dynamic, more stimulus is coming from more (or different) sources. Raiding is an iterative process....you try something, find out it hurts. You adjust your behavior. Something happens (say, fire appears, and you stand in it), it hurts, you adjust your behavior. Given the wider range of stimulus inputs, this increases the time needed to train your rat, er, raid
Soloing, by contrast, is more repetitive....fewer sources of stimulus and a wider range of acceptable responses to that stimulus means less time needed to train the proper response. The soloing game tends to make up for this by increasing the number of repetitions required for reward.
The common unit of measure between the two, then, is time. Raiding takes a larger amount of time to iterate to success. Soloing takes a larger number of repetitions to achieve success.
So, killing 100 landscape mobs probably isn't the equivalent (in terms of time, our only common unit of measure) of killing 100 mobs in a raid. But maybe 1000, or 5000, is. At that point, once you've achieved equal "effort" (again, measured by time), the reward should be equal.
How many hours does it take an average raid to learn how to kill a new T1 boss? Include the time taken to learn how to coordinate with that specific group of people and gain gear off the landscape....you'd have to use the model of a brand-new raid of freshly-capped characters. How many landscape mobs can you kill within that amount of time? That number of mobs should give you the same level of reward.
The model extends to T2 and T2C just as easily.....if we're truly honest with ourselves that "effort" equals "time".
The forums are not an accurate representation of the thoughts and feelings of the whole player base. Those who like a particular feature are in the game enjoying that feature. Those who don't like it log out to mention it on the forums. It is a relevant but biased source of feedback, and any claims of community desire should take this fact into account.
Here's my .02 on solo vs. raiders. I consider myself a "hardcore raider" stereotype, but I have many friends and spent many years in this game in a more casual kin so I have been on both sides.
Three different types of loot/armour sets: Purple, Teal and Gold
Solo people completeing deed consisting of T2 skirms* rewards the ability to barter for purple armour pieces
Solo people completeing deed consisting of T3 skirms* rewards the ability to barter for teal armour pieces
*They can set it up that you have to do a specific set of 2 or 3 skirms to complete a deed for one peice, or do 1-3 skirms in a specific group of skirms.
Raiders completing deed consisting of T1 end-game raid rewards the ability to barter for purple amour pieces
Raiders completing deed consisting of T2 end-game raid rewards the ability to barter for teal armour pieces
Raiders completing deed consisting of T2C end-game raid rewards the ability to barter for gold armour pieces
Note: the difference between what the Soloer's are able to get, and the raiders is less than 10%
T1 raids should drop a purple item for everyone plus 15% chance for each player to replace that purple drop with a teal
T2 skirms should drop a purple item plus 15% to drop a similar** teal
T2 raids should drop a purple for everyone, plus a 65% chance to replace the purple with a teal, and a 5% chance to replace the purple with a gold
T3 skirms should drop a purple, plus a 75% chance to replace the purple with a similar** teal, or if completed a challenge quest within the T3 skirm, adds +25% chance to replace the purple with a similar** teal
T2C raids should drop a teal for everyone, plus a 15% chance at a gold item
Gold items should have a .2-.5% drop rate from riddermark loot boxes (1 out of every 200-500 dropped)
**These similar teal drops from solo skirms should have stats that could benefit the solo player, without all the raid buffs and utility from being in a group, when they do their T2/3 skraids, or try and take on harder solo/3-man content solo. Off the top of my head example
Ring - Solo
-150 agility
-100 fate
-450 morale
-250 power
You would reduce your damage output a bit, and remove the finesse bonus, but you get a boost to morale, plus some power and fate which gives extra crit and ICPR.
It's not perfect and I'm not set with the numbers of stats/%s/etc., just giving examples.
It's fine to base reward off effort....more effort, more reward. I think everybody's good with that as a concept. You can use that as a balancing metric between playstyles, so long as you have a constant value for effort between the two. The challenge is, what's the unit of measurement for "effort" that can apply equally to all playstyles?
Well, if it takes 12 people 24 hours of solid play-time (on average) to get to a chest from a semi-difficult boss (something like ToO Shadow challenge), then said items from that chest must be worth 288 player-hours of time - again, on average.
Now this is not to even consider many things that (sorry to the non-raider) favor raider effort as greater than non-raider effort - or non-group effort. I'd be happy to go into that upon request, but I think it's pretty much been beaten to death here and on every other MMORPG forum.
Originally Posted by Ailedra
At the end of the day, every playstyle has this in common: all that's required to play this game is the ability to react to stimulus. We're presented on-screen stimulus, and we react to it by pushing buttons. Push the right button or series of buttons, we win. Push the wrong ones, and we lose.
This isn't "difficult" behavior....rats can be trained to do the same thing. We need to start being honest about the effort involved in raiding (or soloing, for that matter)...raiding isn't "harder". It's all just stimulus/response.
Fair enough. I will accept your analogy as soon as you can get 12 of your rats to clear all Orthanc challenges in one go. Maybe start with any old group of 12 humans and see how that goes. Let's see if your hypothetical can meet reality, shall we? I think less than 20 groups of humans were able to do so world-wide before the level cap went up. I think you're overstating your ideology by many magnitudes.
Originally Posted by Ailedra
Soloing, by contrast, is more repetitive....fewer sources of stimulus and a wider range of acceptable responses to that stimulus means less time needed to train the proper response. The soloing game tends to make up for this by increasing the number of repetitions required for reward.
My daughter could kill landscape mobs on her first try - having never played the game before. I feel more confident in that than I do your rat analogy.
Originally Posted by Ailedra
The common unit of measure between the two, then, is time. Raiding takes a larger amount of time to iterate to success. Soloing takes a larger number of repetitions to achieve success.
I think you are wrong. Most soloing takes 1 repetition, which is not a repetition - it's a one.
Raiding is all about repetition. Going through the motions until you have a cohesive unit that can execute sufficiently to win. But there are variables that need to be taken into account and adjustments must be made accordingly - such as which Saruman effect procs at the start of phase 5, etc. and your strat must flex on the spot accordingly. Can rats do that? Can most humans do that? They sure couldn't at level 75.
Originally Posted by Ailedra
So, killing 100 landscape mobs probably isn't the equivalent (in terms of time, our only common unit of measure) of killing 100 mobs in a raid. But maybe 1000, or 5000, is. At that point, once you've achieved equal "effort" (again, measured by time), the reward should be equal.
That's your take. My calculations come out to more like 288 player hours of soloing to get something like a ToO Shadow challenge chest reward.
...True there are more incentives to farm random level 85 mobs than setting a group to down a 85+ level mob on challenge mode...
Lol what? No matter what raiders (myself included) always have better access to loot generally speaking. So what if a small percentage of soloers get a nice drop? I say good for them. The game's about having fun after all.
The first raid I ever went on was in September of 2007. We, a group made up of about five kinships, cleared the giant, drake and spider wings of Helegrod. In September of 2007 it was kind of hard to find 24 people with the time and commitment to do Helegrod. The last raid I went on was last night. Here is what I've learned over the years:
1) You don't need the best gear to complete the raid to get the best gear.
2) Raiding is enjoyable, drama is not.
3) I don't judge people by what equipment they have or don't have. I judge them by their personality.
4) The best way to learn something new is to play with a stranger. They may have tried something you haven't.
5) Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting were random world drops. Rare, random drops are a fun surprise.
6) What you farm today, either in raid or solo, will be replaced tomorrow, or next week, or next month...
7) The people that have played the game the longest, have enjoyed it the most, not because of the drops but because of the friends they have made.
Elendilmir - Officer of the Mithril Crowns (The Oldest Kinship in LOTRO)
"It doesn't matter how well you play, only how good you look while playing."
One of the reasons that there are few clashes between PvPers and the "rest" is that the majority of the rewards you get for pvping is title and renown based not loot based. Most pvpers I know pvp for the fun and challange of it not the loot. It would be nice if in this case the raiders would be more like pvpers.
Different formats are different. News at 11.
This point is worth looking into at a macro perspective, as gear serves a much, much more important function in an MMO aside from "shines are neat". Gear is an alternate difficulty slider in pve content. There are always groups that can "push" content for bragging rights; not every group can do that though... Those who can't push content take the long way around by repeating content and gearing up. Content gets easier as you gear up your group until the point where group skill + gearing is sufficient to complete the encounter. Challenge and reward have always been intertwined in raiding, if only because the line is blurry between to two. This aspect of progression has always been a bit broken in this game because gearing doesn't happen in the challenging content in this game, it happens by grinding easier stuff repetitively.
Radiance was a GOOD mechanic for non-raiders. It allowed challenge progression for raiders in instance spaces while making these same raiders relatively close in power level to everyone else when outside the raid space, reducing gear imbalance between players in regular content. It was the GRIND that made radiance unworkable.
Either way, PvP vs a poor, poor comparison in this subject. Players generally don't like imbalance between themselves and other players, and gear progression in pvp creates imbalance. PvP gear might be unavoidable for progression based games, but generally hasn't been well received in ANY MMO.
All that being said, gear is pretty much a vestigial organ in this game. There's no challenge to obtaining it. It's unlikely that there will ever be a follow-on raid "to gear up for" in this game again; there's barely even more mundane challenges such as overland group bosses and the like. Getting a first age and any sort of class appropriate teals are a noticable increase, anything beyond that is barely noticeable barring the accidental overpowered set bonus. Otherwise, gear is mostly just a "shiny" in this game.
As someone else said, if the OP doesn't like the way things are now, it would be a good time to jump ship. The writing was on the wall for people like him a long, long time ago...
Lol what? No matter what raiders (myself included) always have better access to loot generally speaking. So what if a small percentage of soloers get a nice drop? I say good for them. The game's about having fun after all.
'Fun' is a complex and highly subjective notion.
Applied to MMOs, which have a minimal certain social interactions, you at some point end up comparing you to others. Fun can then be impacted by how you measure your character to others. Call it epeen, but truth is that themeparks are actually designed around it. Some even disable cosmetic a-tabs and force level cap players into hub, so low level players envy their gear.
So indeed what others are getting and how they are getting compared to what I am doing has an impact of my 'fun'. And I throw away all comments which would then focus about maturity, how it should not be, etc. I could not car less about subjective views based on prejudices and politically correct behaviour.
From a pure objective standpoint, the way some BIS gear is currently implemented affects many players, including the ones you think would not be affected by it.
This is a complicated issue. I feel that a lot of what the Raiders are saying is that the instances are 'intellectually' more difficult.
Having raided for years, most of what raiders say about 'effort' is very much overblown and exaggerated to make them special in other people's (and indeed their own) eyes.
I've main-tanked and healed (and DPSed a fair amount) in raids for years, and the only 'hard' thing in raids is getting everyone to do their part right at the same time on any given boss. Yes, there's a certain amount of time it takes to understand what that part is, but that generally doesn't take long, and 99% of that is covered by "Don't stand in 'fire'" and "Don't stand in obvious cleave range!"
I have no issue with good gear by random drop, nor even with trading for good gear by a relatively long, grindy (i.e. TIME-consuming) path. People play to various extents to progress their online avatars. Picking one path versus another is not a reason to gear one path better than the other. When progress stops, a lot of people stop playing.
You can make all the justifications you want why your special part of the game should get better shinies than 'that other part' of the game, but I'm not buying any of those justifications. Neither soloers, nor raiders, nor PvPers, nor dungeon farmers, nor skirmish grinders should automatically get better gear than others. Anyone who says otherwise is coming up with justifications to take something away from others to try to be 'special' in some way themselves.
Having raided for years, most of what raiders say about 'effort' is very much overblown and exaggerated to make them special in other people's (and indeed their own) eyes.
I've main-tanked and healed (and DPSed a fair amount) in raids for years, and the only 'hard' thing in raids is getting everyone to do their part right at the same time on any given boss. Yes, there's a certain amount of time it takes to understand what that part is, but that generally doesn't take long, and 99% of that is covered by "Don't stand in 'fire'" and "Don't stand in obvious cleave range!"
I have no issue with good gear by random drop, nor even with trading for good gear by a relatively long, grindy (i.e. TIME-consuming) path. People play to various extents to progress their online avatars. Picking one path versus another is not a reason to gear one path better than the other. When progress stops, a lot of people stop playing.
You can make all the justifications you want why your special part of the game should get better shinies than 'that other part' of the game, but I'm not buying any of those justifications. Neither soloers, nor raiders, nor PvPers, nor dungeon farmers, nor skirmish grinders should automatically get better gear than others. Anyone who says otherwise is coming up with justifications to take something away from others to try to be 'special' in some way themselves.
I would not disagree/agree with most of this. The leader of the raid would seem to have the most complicated role to play. Others; off tanks, mezzers, healers, debuffers, etc. to a lesser degree.
The bigger issue might be. In a video online game that people pay to play, should one group of players have the ability to get better rewards than another group?
"what you assert, you must prove"
“opinions; by definition, could be right or wrong”
“unless stated otherwise; everything I say is an opinion”
The bigger issue might be. In a video online game that people pay to play, should one group of players have the ability to get better rewards than another group?
After 10-15 years in MMOs, having done every playstyle from hardcore to casual, including PvP of various types, my opinion is resoundingly no. There's no good reason to give one group of players better rewards than the other, even if that means a small group will take their toys and go somewhere else if they can't be sufficiently special. (The OP sounds like one of those.)
After 10-15 years in MMOs, having done every playstyle from hardcore to casual, including PvP of various types, my opinion is resoundingly no. There's no good reason to give one group of players better rewards than the other, even if that means a small group will take their toys and go somewhere else if they can't be sufficiently special. (The OP sounds like one of those.)
Personally, I tend to agree with the ‘no’ part of your post. Others will, no doubt have different opinions. Many, I am sure will agree with some/most/the entirety of the rest of your post.
"what you assert, you must prove"
“opinions; by definition, could be right or wrong”
“unless stated otherwise; everything I say is an opinion”
I don't have any problem with some BIS gear being available to soloers. Frankly, most raiders can't be bothered to solo for hours on end if the time investment is comparable in a raid. We like to raid not kill 5k mobs in a mind public numbing instance (one so mind numbing that it's being botted now- you know who you are).
Soloers should be able to get good gear but gear drops should be a function of difficulty. The easiest path to gear should be the slowest. The hardest path should be the fastest. I think the reason that most raiders are so annoyed right now is not that BIS gear is available solo --BUT-- that the BIS gear is 8x more efficiently acquired solo than in a raid. That just makes no sense. Clearly the developers screwed up their maths.
I've main-tanked and healed (and DPSed a fair amount) in raids for years, and the only 'hard' thing in raids is getting everyone to do their part right at the same time on any given boss. Yes, there's a certain amount of time it takes to understand what that part is, but that generally doesn't take long, and 99% of that is covered by "Don't stand in 'fire'" and "Don't stand in obvious cleave range!"
No, not really. That's a superlatively simplistic view. My guess is you haven't raided much in LotRO in the past couple years... If you have, I have no idea how you can come to such a conclusion. Granted, it's not rocket science, but figuring out the intricacies of the entire F/F fight (the way it was supposed to be done) took the entire community months to nail down. So if you stand by your assessment, you're basically calling noob on all LotRO players who hit ToO hard from the get-go - including the best raiders in this game.
Originally Posted by Loreineth
I have no issue with good gear by random drop, nor even with trading for good gear by a relatively long, grindy (i.e. TIME-consuming) path. People play to various extents to progress their online avatars. Picking one path versus another is not a reason to gear one path better than the other. When progress stops, a lot of people stop playing.
Raid-caliber solo-earned rewards were absent from this game for over 5 years. What kept soloers playing all that time?
When raids stop giving exclusive rewards, you lose much of your raiding population. Like LotRO. Like now. The entire mentality, for better or worse, revolves around people who want to conquer the most difficult challenges the devs can reasonably come up with. But you're a raider, you know that. How the associated general mentality surprises you is really the most surprising part of your story. I'm not talking about e-peeners, either - I'm talking about mature accomplished raiders of which there are (were) plenty.
Originally Posted by Loreineth
You can make all the justifications you want why your special part of the game should get better shinies than 'that other part' of the game, but I'm not buying any of those justifications. Neither soloers, nor raiders, nor PvPers, nor dungeon farmers, nor skirmish grinders should automatically get better gear than others. Anyone who says otherwise is coming up with justifications to take something away from others to try to be 'special' in some way themselves.
Well, you see, aside from raiding, the rest of the game is easy. Utterly and truly easy. Mind-numbingly simple even. The epitome of accessible. But let's look at your alternatives:
Aside from 1v1's (or 1v4's ), PvP "success" in this game really only requires you to be present for long enough. Nothing more. Zilch. It will take you longer if you really suck, but it is what it is and most people can learn the ropes well enough to do alright.
Grinding solo mobs or dungeons for 0.05% drop chances only requires patience and a lot of free time. There is no appreciable skill involved. There really is no learning process - assuming you have at least some sort of semi-dextrous extremity to bang on the keys with.
I don't say this to be a jerk - I say this to be true. And it is true. I'm not trying to take anything away from anyone because raid rewards do not have to be exclusive any more than solo rewards need to be (this is especially true if a person buys into your claim that raiding isn't especially difficult).
If a person has the time to grind mobs at a 0.05% drop rate, they certainly have the time to find a raid group and hit some raids. They will quite likely have more fun, too. But they don't. I wonder why that is. Turbine has done a lot so no one has to sit there for more than an hour or two at a time if they wish not to (save this no lock scaled raid garbage). So barring the possibility of having a newborn child to always attend to or having a raging incontinent bladder, yes - you can raid. People still say, "I don't want to raid".
I'll spare my musings on that subject for lack of wont to be branded with troll rhetoric - or hurt anyone's delicate sensibilities.
As bastiat1 said above, I also don't mind sharing some rewards. But the path of least resistance must be the longest path. And if you take exclusivity out of raids, you will kill that segment of the game. Those players have already left in droves. Like I said earlier, this game survived up until October of 2012 offering precious little to the solo player as compared to the group player or raider. And somehow the game still managed to hold on to a large (and vocal) population of people who had apparently been getting it stuck to them year after year - expac after expac.
And they're still here crying the same old wolf...
I am starting to scratch my head here a little bit because I don't understand some of the arguments. Is this an argument about a specifice drop or is this an argument about drops in general? There currently is and always has been drops from raids that you can only get from raids. Please, please correct me if I'm wrong but there are a variety of items that only drop from the Mirkwood raid cluster. You have to raid to have them drop. Or is this argument perhaps about crafting recipes? Crafting recipes have always dropped from day one from random mobs. They have dropped both from mobs out in the world and mobs in instances. I raid. I solo. I've seen some very nice random drops. I've spent DKP on raid rewards. I've spent from hours to days figuring out a fight. I still want Nanu for my yard!!! I do not know how many times I went through Carn Dum on my LM because I wanted the Elder Staff and it never dropped once when I was on my LM. However, the first time I killed the Watcher, a 1st Age Staff dropped (back before the token barter system) and I ended up with six major legacies on it all at tier 5 or 6. Sometimes, luck or lack thereof plays a bigger role than raiding, even in raids.
Elendilmir - Officer of the Mithril Crowns (The Oldest Kinship in LOTRO)
"It doesn't matter how well you play, only how good you look while playing."
If the lack of exclusive rewards (at least regarding performance-affecting exclusive rewards) is what has or will kill the raiding community and their desire to play (which I only believe is true for a small minority that is thankfully losing more and more influence in the MMO industry with each passing day), then that just goes to show you just how shallow, egotistical, and ultimately selfish that segment of the player base is, and how insustainable it is to base a game and an industry around said players. You'll ultimately end up sacrificing a greater majority of the player base and a great majority of potential players by catering to this minority and giving them exclusive access to places and items that a far greater portion of the player base won't bother to try sticking around to try and get. Like I said before, this type of model might have worked in the era where the MMO player base mostly made up of people who could dedicate thousands of hours a year to a game that they were obligated to pay a monthly fee to play (basically, the WOW system). But we are no longer in that era, especially since the dawn of F2P in this game and in the MMO industry in general. To close off a whole level of performance-affecting items and/or an entire cluster of instances to the majority of a playerbase just to satisfy the egos and interests of that select bunch of players who grind hundreds of hours a month in an MMO and expect to be supplied with gear that can only be gotten with such an otherwise unreasonable and unrealistic time investment is downright lunacy, if not outright development/marketing suicide.
If raids are to be given exclusive rewards, then they should be non-performance affecting items such as titles, cosmetics, and housing items. Those things will literally serve no other purpose than to be trophies and touchstones of the accomplishments victorious players will have as proof of their deeds. But the moment you start making performance-affecting (especially enhancing) items as part of those exclusive rewards, you basically close those off to a select bunch of people who have the available time and the grouping possibilities to obtain such things. You introduce an artificial class divide of players that resembles an aristocracy of sorts (where the greatest opportunities and capabilities are limited to a select few), something that never should exist in gaming.
And by the way, maybe a lot of the so-called 'hardcore raiders' may have left in droves, in response to the fact that there is less exclusivity in raids these days (which to me basically reads as another way of saying that they don't get to feel as special as they want to anymore). Well, if that is the case, then this game has basically continued to grow and thrive without them. Maybe, just maybe, 'killing' the old notion and paradigm of what 'raiding' currently is and is supposed to be, and redefining what is it going to be in the future, is not only not going to kill that part of the game, but rather make it better overall, for more and more players who play it. If the old-school style of raiders feel that is something that doesn't appeal to them for whatever reason (it bores them, it's too easy, it doesn't feel exclusive enough, etc.), then they are free to pick up their toys and find another place that can give them what they want. But I would say that the places that they'll have to go to for that type of experience are growing scarcer and scarcer in this era of MMO gaming. Maybe at one time they were enough of a majority where the industry catered to them and that kind of playing style because they were the only customers they had. That is no longer the case.
P.S: Since the advent of F2P in this game, the developers have been doing more and more to convert things in the game so as to be solo-friendly and to not make fellowing an absolute requirement to progress. And I would venture to guess that the majority of the non-raiders now would have quit and not paid the required monthly subscription if the game was still structured now the way it was then. So really, it's not about what kept soloers busy for 5 years, but rather what's kept them busy for the last 2-2.5 years. And on that note, there's been a LOT that kept them busy, and the fact that there's more and more possibilities for them with each passing day is more than welcome.
Last edited by Specterace; Feb 04 2013 at 07:02 PM.
You have not gotten close to the crux of the issue.
Wiping the raiding community at the expense of the solo crowd may be less risky financially than doing the reverse, but it simply should not happen.
I however think that developers would want to keep as many players as possible. The only way is to stop making a confusion between the two crowds, by separating their gear entirely. As long there will be confusion, there will be conflict.
Let me try to explain some of the "angst" in the raiding community. When Riders of Rohan came out there were no instances to be run, meaning no challenges to overcome and no shiny gear to collect. This is the equivalent of turbine not coming up with a new craft tier or something of the same sort. When they finally came out with a new lvl 85 raid, this raid was somewhat of a disaster. Not only was it not entirely new, meaning that the fun of learning how to run the raid easily was absent, the "new" Armour set that came with this raid was broken. There was also almost no benefit to running the raid T2, let alone challenge mode. The most beneficial thing was to farm the first boss over and over again(sound familiar?), this took about 10min compared to the 2-3 hours it took to run the whole raid.
Not only was this raid late, it was broken and almost useless to run as well. Now they have come out with bracelets that don't require skill, teamwork or deep thought to acquire, no these pieces of shiny new gear come from killing mobs in public instances over and over again. Apparently Turbines new motto for acquiring BIS gear is quantity over quality and that is not how these kind of games should be played.
I don't understand your point. Doing tier2 raids IS more rewarding. There is a significant increase in drops and currency rewards to compensate for the increase in challenge. If there wasn't I might could understand your argument better. And I think you are really exaggerating the benefits of soloing on this game. Yes, you could get really lucky and get one of the rare drops... but how this makes soloing more rewarding than doing tier2 raids in your eyes is beyond my ability to understand ^^
Facts: BG T2C is about 3 hours + long.
are you talking about the recent addition of relics and ixp? if so in 3 hours spent farming norfolk you can get more relics and ixp.
oh you are talking about the teals? If so you are correct it has teal possibilities. But easily can be bought in AH. Considering many had farm this @ t1 those items still lingers in AH as we speak
Oh you might be referring to marks, medallions and seals? Wrong, you can get more in 3-man even 6-man with TIME spent.
Fact: Players raid for the END game items (in this case epic items). Often you just get relics or worse ixp in BG t2c completion.
Did BG T2C full 14 times now, 2 epic items drop. Correct me if I'm wrong but this epic items are rolled against the group. So if one wins the rest gets screwed (surpringly that is 11 other players). Calculate that for a bit 12 players multiplied with 14 events and 2 epics.
Look at the alternative:
Solo: Farm any 85s for 3 hours and you get more relics, ixp. No requirements to solo, you can get a lvl 85 wth no virtues or even gear and still win (with a mount). Also the variables are a lot "higher" to win an EPIC gear consider you can only get 6 max chest in BG (please please don't add in the 100k morale+ mobs that you can "farm" in a raid to get a bracelet recipe). The chances of failure is significantly higher than burning a normal lvl 85 mob. You get lots of kills in turn gives you the best possible outcome.
Oh and I farmed recipes for 9 hours the other day and got 3 ancient (2 armor pieces and 1 bracelet) LET just give it a 60% crit so in average maybe I get at least 1 epic item (although I did crit the 2 armor pieces but not the bracelet). So out of 14 (times I tried bg) x 3hours (approximately some might have been longer...) soo that is about 42 hours of not getting an epic gear? My math might be off... I just woke up.
Oh maybe you meant bounties! how did i miss that!? You win sorry forget everything I said.
Last edited by Whatevaplz; Feb 05 2013 at 07:52 AM.
Why must Raiders get better gear than others? What are they going to do with that gear?
Well...raiders face more difficult challenges than solo players. If you don't believe please compare the hardest challenge a solo player has to face (most likely some special boss in a skirm) with let's say ToO Saruman T2C.
BUT I don't think that that kind of gear should be exclusive for raiders only. The problem the "raiding community" (never knew we had something like this...when is the next community meeting? ) has with the current situation is that we could get all the gear we needed through raids in the past. Now we can't. We (which includes everyone who wants to have the new shinies) are forced to do brainless farming. I really cannot believe that anyone enjoys this playstyle and I am worried about the consequences to the ingame economy.
To make it clear: I don't have a problem with world drops. But why can't new shinies drop from CM-chests? Why can't they be looted from the endboss of a skirm (even if it's a soloskirm)? Why can't the new recipes be bartered from a vendor in hytbold? Why why why...
There could be multiple ways for every playstyle.
And the most interesting question: Why do solo players have any problems if the new shinies would drop also in raid chests?
Why so greedy? Why do anyone has a problem with other players who might have better equipment? I couldn't care less about this. My only reaction is to figure out how to get the items I am missing and to find a way to get those things. If the only answer is: farming 24/7 lvl 85 trash mobs...well...yes I am a little bit pissed
I am raiding since 2007 twice a week. I do it for the loot B U T more than that I do it for the challenge, I do it for fun and last but not least I do it because I can play with 11 friends of mine! And this is realy great!
And the most interesting question: Why do solo players have any problems if the new shinies would drop also in raid chests?
I don't think anyone does have a problem with that. As long as everyone has access to roughly the same quality of gear in some manner, there's no issues. When raiders say "Oh, no one but raiders should have access to X" that's when people start having issues. I don't pay my money to Turbine to finance a quality of gear that only a few people ever have access to, but I also don't point fingers and say "Y doesn't deserve to have the same gear I can get!" (Which is something you see several times in this thread alone.)
If you're having issues getting decent drops from raids themselves, that's something to take up with Turbine.
I think you are wrong. Most soloing takes 1 repetition, which is not a repetition - it's a one.
I thought I was pretty clear that the "repetition" I was talking about for landscape solo play was repetition of killing the same types of mobs...that is, X^y landscape = Z raid, where X^y is much much larger than Z, requiring more repetitions of the action (killing a landscape mob) to equal the same effort. If it wasn't, let me clarify now and say that's what I meant. Anything deeper than that is playing at semantics for the sake of argument.
Originally Posted by Southpa
But there are variables that need to be taken into account and adjustments must be made accordingly - such as which Saruman effect procs at the start of phase 5, etc. and your strat must flex on the spot accordingly. Can rats do that? Can most humans do that? They sure couldn't at level 75.
You know, one of the most common replies raiders make to complaints of loot availability/exclusivity is "that loot is available to everybody...they just have to put in the effort raiders do".
Ok, great, but then which is it? Are high-caliber raiding groups doing things that very few people can do, or is that gear truly available to "anybody who chooses to put in the effort"? I'm good with either answer, but in terms of determining loot availability, we need to pick one and stick with it.
Originally Posted by Southpa
That's your take. My calculations come out to more like 288 player hours of soloing to get something like a ToO Shadow challenge chest reward.
Ok, so to re-post a punchline from upthread, we've agreed in principle, now we're just dickering over price.
The forums are not an accurate representation of the thoughts and feelings of the whole player base. Those who like a particular feature are in the game enjoying that feature. Those who don't like it log out to mention it on the forums. It is a relevant but biased source of feedback, and any claims of community desire should take this fact into account.
You know, one of the most common replies raiders make to complaints of loot availability/exclusivity is "that loot is available to everybody...they just have to put in the effort raiders do".
Ok, great, but then which is it? Are high-caliber raiding groups doing things that very few people can do, or is that gear truly available to "anybody who chooses to put in the effort"? I'm good with either answer, but in terms of determining loot availability, we need to pick one and stick with it.
Honestly, I'd say that it's more the former than the latter, but that doesn't fully invalidate the latter.
Raiding is kind of like a team sport: there will be people who are naturally gifted and excel in whatever role they're asked to fill, there will be people who have a particular talent that is useful to the team, and there will be people who lack the natural ability but are capable of improving if they put in the time and effort to do so. For any of those people, the raid gear truly is available to "[those] who choose to put in the effort". I'm sure that there are countless people who would be quite good raiders if they tried, but for one reason or another they refuse to, or maybe just haven't tried yet.
There are also people who, no matter how much time and effort they expend, will never be good enough to be part of a "winning team" (in this context: a raid group capable of beating the toughest challenges in the toughest raid). Additionally, there are people who may have the individual skill but are terrible for team chemistry. Believe it or not, team chemistry plays a role in raid success in LOTRO just like it does in team sports - one or two people with bad attitudes or abrasive personalities can be poison to a raiding kin and lower its chances of success.
Finally, much like a team sport, not every team can "win". I realize that we're not actually competing against each other like we would in a PvP environment, but each raid is calibrated so that a group must have a minimum level of skill and competency to be able to beat it (win). Some raids are easier than others (Turtle is easier than Durin's Bane T2C was on level for instance), and have a lower threshold needed for success. The mere fact that we have T1, T2, and T2C demonstrates that the raids are designed to be beatable by fewer groups the harder they get.
That's why I say that both ideas are valid, but that the former ("only a few groups can beat X") is more true than the latter ("anyone can get the rewards if they put in the effort"). There are people and groups who, if they put in the effort, can get to the point where they can beat the content and get the rewards but, by design, the raids are tuned so that only a few groups can beat the hardest content on-level.
"Sam thinks it a queer place, but I think he likes it, too." - Frodo
"If you're in advertising or marketing, kill yourself." - Bill Hicks
5) Glamdring, Orcrist and Sting were random world drops. Rare, random drops are a fun surprise.
No they werent. They were found in the trolls cave after the fight with the trolls in which they were tricked into staying out for sunrise. In a LOTRO sceanario this could easily be be translated into an instance or raid. The swords were found in the trolls loot (loot chest). These items wernt found in a solo scenario either, they were found through group effort
No they werent. They were found in the trolls cave after the fight with the trolls in which they were tricked into staying out for sunrise. In a LOTRO sceanario this could easily be be translated into an instance or raid. The swords were found in the trolls loot (loot chest). These items wernt found in a solo scenario either, they were found through group effort
You could look at it both ways. Since the trolls were not in the cave when the fight occurred, they (or an individual) might have simply looted the chest without a fight if they had found the cave before they encountered the trolls. Or the adventurers could have killed the trolls and never discovered the cave, and then a solo adventurer could have come along and looted the chest.
"what you assert, you must prove"
“opinions; by definition, could be right or wrong”
“unless stated otherwise; everything I say is an opinion”
It seems like many of you try to seperate players into different predefined groups.
There are the soloers, the PvPers, the raiders, et cetera...
I do not agree with this clear seperation. There might be some players who prefere soloplay and there might be players who spend most of their time in the moors but you simply can not call "the raiders" a group of people who do exclusively raids all day and night. If you want to be a successful "raider" you have to do nearly ALL the stuff a so called "soloplayer" does PLUS much more. And you probabely want some etten gear as well for PvE Raids.
And this is the reason why I think it is legitim to say that raiding is the most challenging and time consuming way to play and you need the highest effort to be successful. (well, of course if your goal is to become R15, this is even more time consuming).
Do you "soloplayers" really think that raiders do not do deeds and quests and dailies and all the solo content? You have to do all the solo stuff first and then you can think of trying a challenging raid. So raiding is in my opinion the playstyle that unites soloplay (virtues/gear grind) PvP (I use gear from the Ettenmoors as well for the raids) and group-play (the raid as such).
I do not think that one group of players should have access to the best gear an other group of players should not, but I think that the people who try to experience ALL of the offered options in the game and therefore are actually able to be successful in the hardest raids should be rewarded with the best gear.
It seems like many of you try to seperate players into different predefined groups.
There are the soloers, the PvPers, the raiders, et cetera...
I do not agree with this clear seperation. There might be some players who prefere soloplay and there might be players who spend most of their time in the moors but you simply can not call "the raiders" a group of people who do exclusively raids all day and night. If you want to be a successful "raider" you have to do nearly ALL the stuff a so called "soloplayer" does PLUS much more. And you probabely want some etten gear as well for PvE Raids.
And this is the reason why I think it is legitim to say that raiding is the most challenging and time consuming way to play and you need the highest effort to be successful. (well, of course if your goal is to become R15, this is even more time consuming).
Do you "soloplayers" really think that raiders do not do deeds and quests and dailies and all the solo content? You have to do all the solo stuff first and then you can think of trying a challenging raid. So raiding is in my opinion the playstyle that unites soloplay (virtues/gear grind) PvP (I use gear from the Ettenmoors as well for the raids) and group-play (the raid as such).
I do not think that one group of players should have access to the best gear an other group of players should not, but I think that the people who try to experience ALL of the offered options in the game and therefore are actually able to be successful in the hardest raids should be rewarded with the best gear.
I agree that the more one does, the more rewards one should get. My earlier questions were.
Why must Raiders get better gear than others? What are they going to do with that gear?
Why must 'gear' be the rewards for raiding? Are there no alternative rewards?
"what you assert, you must prove"
“opinions; by definition, could be right or wrong”
“unless stated otherwise; everything I say is an opinion”
I do not think that one group of players should have access to the best gear an other group of players should not, but I think that the people who try to experience ALL of the offered options in the game and therefore are actually able to be successful in the hardest raids should be rewarded with the best gear.
First you say no one should be excluded, then you single your group out for 'the best gear'? No matter how you try to justify it, you're trying to exclude others from your 'special' status.
Maybe you should have to pay points or cash for access to it, since you're so special?
Sure, raiders can have deeds and other special rewards, but, gear access shouldn't be restricted in that way. Sure, raiders can have 'raid sets', but, stat-equivalent gear for others is fine, too; i.e. it doesn't all have to look the same. Raiders can have exclusive 'looks', too. Just not exclusive stats, imo.
Last edited by Loreineth; Feb 05 2013 at 04:27 PM.
Another option might be: That Raiders gear be bumped up while in a raid in an instance, and revert back to normal levels when not. This would give them an advantage over players who go into an instance without having earned the raider gear. This would also give the solo players equal footing in landscape/solo play.
At first glance, I can see no overwhelming reason to grant group players, (who hone group skills) a soloing advantage over solo-ers, who may spend their time honing their soloing skills. Just as I can see no reason to grant solo players an advantage over raiders, (under the current system) while doing a raid, just because they might have twice as many landscape kills as a raider.
Last edited by RKL; Feb 05 2013 at 07:32 PM.
"what you assert, you must prove"
“opinions; by definition, could be right or wrong”
“unless stated otherwise; everything I say is an opinion”
I think that one of the points that a lot of people are trying to make is this, raids difficulty is lowered by the 2 following factors:
1. The Skill Level of the Group
2. How well geared the group is.
Raiders need the better gear so that they can be more effective and have to put in less effort to achieve their goal. Im sure the best raiders in the game can run through raids in almost anything, like how almost anyone can run through raids in the BIS gear.
The OP was not complaining about how soloers were receiving raid level gear without raiding, he(or she) was complaining about the only way to get BIS gear(which is almost always better suited to raiding) was to grind mobs in public instances for hours, with absolutely no way to acquire these items in the places they are meant to be used in. These bracelets do not have bonus's to crafting or run speed, These bracelets give very large boosts to stats. Stats are most important in raiding and the moors. There is not any place in solo where I can see you needed 2500+ of a main stat for you toon.
There needs to be 3 different types of Armour sets, one based around solo, one based around raiding, and one based around pvp. All of these will be equivalent in places they shouldn't be, ie. Solo and Raid gear are equally well suited in the moors. This way people would be able to get the gear for the task they want to spend their time on, by acquiring in that area of the game.
i used to spend a lot of time running the three mans, six mans, and raids. now i spend it farming mobs in the hytbold daily instances. i opened over a thousand t2c chests, and got a total of one gold class item from many, many hours of play. in a fraction of that time i have gotten 4 bracelet recipes and made about 100x more in coinage by killing normal 11k mobs in the norcrofts. it is simply a matter of choosing the path that gives the most reward for time spent, and right now that path also happens to be the easiest.
Another option might be: That Raiders gear be bumped up while in a raid in an instance, and revert back to normal levels when not. This would give them an advantage over players who go into an instance without having earned the raider gear. This would also give the solo players equal footing in landscape/solo play.
At first glance, I can see no overwhelming reason to grant group players, (who hone group skills) a soloing advantage over solo-ers, who may spend their time honing their soloing skills. Just as I can see no reason to grant solo players an advantage over raiders, (under the current system) while doing a raid, just because they might have twice as many landscape kills as a raider.
Hard content should be rewarded.
Solo content is not a challenge that needs better gearing to achieve.
Raiding is.
Those are 2 simple facts , either you want to believe them or not , is up to you.
And even though i don't exactly disagree with you with your suggestion about gear , i can only remember what
happened with radiance. That stat helped raiders in raids , while outside it did nothing. Well , it wasn't as good as
it was originally intented , and i see no reason why there should be another effort on this while raider can simply
get the best gear , since he needs it , and get over it. : )
Anyway , U10 is coming and recent evidence shows that the balance is more or less restored.
There are still many questions , things we don't know , but Turbine is heading towards the right path.
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) has with the current situation is that we could get all the gear we needed through raids in the past. Now we can't. We (which includes everyone who wants to have the new shinies) are forced to do brainless farming. I really cannot believe that anyone enjoys this playstyle and I am worried about the consequences to the ingame economy.
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