Comments on: The Rolling Mid/End-Game

By: Stormwaltz

Stormwaltz — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:26:33 +0000

Speaking only for myself, Moria didn’t bring much beyond sightseeing. I’m the cliche hardcore casual. I don’t enjoy raiding or PvMP, but I can play clever nonsense quests for 3-4 hours at a stretch.

For me, Moria was just a long rep grind to get the damn goat that would restore the mobility I’d enjoyed at 50. As soon as I could, I got the hell out of there. I still haven’t seen an inch of the Foundations of Stone, and I’ve never had any inclination to enter 16th Hall, Hall of Mirrors, Endless Stair, &c.

I described the LI system as “porn for game designers” before it was released, and I still feel it has the potential to be so. They just made it far too grindy. There were two issues, the problem of getting decent legacies (useful and high tier), and the problem of the relic grind.

They’ve taken steps in SoM rectify the former problem, but from what I’ve seen so far they’ve largely ignored the latter. This is a mistake, for the latter is by far the more serious issue. I get tons of Khuzdul Tablets and I find plenty of raw LIs on mobs. Grinding relics is stupidly slow. I’ve been smashing relics together since Moria released, and I only built my first Tier 7 a few weeks ago.

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:24:53 +0000

Sounds like they’re settling for an more or less annual Expansion(ish)/Refresh cycle, pretty much like everyone else.

Guess the lifetime sub oil well is about dry already.

By: Ravious

Ravious — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:34:45 +0000

While in beta it was pretty much implicitly confirmed that the 5-level bump is basically a gear reset. One of the Turbine devs confirmed that the Mines of Moria radiance set from the first cluster was way “too good.” This left them little room for boosting rewards for the next cluster, etc. Now, hopefully they are starting in a better position to make stronger DIKU pushes as they get out updates.

By: Suzina

Suzina — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:18:29 +0000

I don’t know, Moria worked well for me. Instances like Grand Stair, Forges, Halls of Crafting, the 3-mans… they were all a blast to run. Most of them were still a blast to run on the 10th time.

I had my share of frustrations, Dark Delving’s buggy bosses, radiance gating, and the like. But overall, it was a very enjoyable end-game from which I will hold fond memories for years.

Mirkwood’s incremental 5-level move is probably a good one. The most difficult of the Moria raids will still be a challenge to an under-radiance equipped group at 65, and less-than-full groups will probably have a blast running the Moria instances when they can’t be bothered with the new Mirkwood stuff.