Category: Lord of the Rings Online

The Lord of the Rings Onlineâ„¢ did well with its endgame under Shadows of Angmarâ„¢ but has struggled since. The SoA endgame had two sets of three full-group instances, of length varying from three large rooms to three hours. Late in SoA, there were full-group battle instances that were precursors to skirmishes. Small fellowship instances had yet to be developed. The two raids were big deals, Helegrod less popular because it took more effort to organize 24 people, but there are still regular groups for The Rift.

The endgame in Mines of Moriaâ„¢ was deeply marred. The six instances were known for bugs and exploits, and the current player approach seems to be farming the fastest and avoiding the two that are painfully long and/or difficult. The developers have judged Radiance to be a failed mechanic (as implemented) and are removing it. MoM launched with a one-fight raid, later added another one-fight raid, and at the end of its life added something comparable to The Rift. I have no idea if that ever became popular; the small fellowship instances never did, but the full-group Halls of Crafting still sees regular use. The small fellowship instances faced the problem of using mirrors, levers, and gates to create puzzle content. Group puzzle content does not work well aside from the occasional puzzle boss.

Siege of Mirkwoodâ„¢ is about to get its second shot at an endgame, and it needs it. It launched with three small fellowship instances, a full group instance, and a two-group raid. Aside from skirmishes and scaling content, that has not changed in over a year. Of these, the ones seeing the most use seem to be the fastest small fellowship instance and the full group instance. (LotRO has consistently had some fun full-group instances. SG is a good dungeon.) I enjoy the Warg Pens, even if the challenge mode there is a bit tedious. The Dungeons of Dol Guldur is just poor on every level; it is a neat idea, but stealth content + groups + MMO does not work well together, to say nothing of its boss fight (he can repeatedly disable the entire group with no way to prevent it, and if he randomly does one move back-to-back, he kills half of the prisoners you are rescuing; combine the two for bonus fun) or its deed that requires running it many times (save 10 named prisoners, a random 2 of which count per day, and of course you must successfully get those two out). I am not much of a raider, so I cannot comment on whether people like BG or are just dutifully running it because it, like DN, was the only raid content out there. Oh, and it can give the best loot, so of course people are running it for the reward. I hear about loot, but I have yet to hear anyone argue for it on the basis of being fun. And you only need that loot if you are running the BG raid, so it is neatly circular.

If GLFF is any guide, the most popular and widely used SoM endgame content is the level-scaling SoA content, the Great Barrows coming in #1. Which is kind of sad, if the first dungeon in the game is the most popular dungeon at the end of the game. Let’s hope things go well in the next update.

: Zubon

My Warden is entering the mid-40s and exiting “one level per day” unless I take some vacation time. The real goal is level 58, when a daily Barrow Downs Survival skirmish becomes more plausible with Conviction (AE heal and threat: kite-tanking).

Just ahead lies what used to be the endgame, so there is a ridiculous lot of content available: Angmar, Goblin Town, Eregion, and Forochel, plus all the Shadows of Angmarâ„¢-era endgame instances and occupations, plus skirmishes and scaling content. The leveling path becomes far more constrained in Moria, but I could enter there in my mid-50s, or you can skip any level range in these days of scaling content.

I already have my completist character with a mostly complete deed log, so I have only a minimal urge to achievement-grind on this character. I have accepted advice on the five virtues she needs, so that will be ~50 deeds, and the rest is decoration that no one else can see. The “Warden” title is not available until level 65, so I may pick another target deed before then. I do feel compelled to complete the deeds for X quests in each zone plus the epic chain, but The Shire is my only place to backtrack and quest-grind. I may even overcome the compulsion to complete the mail and pie delivery chains.

: Zubon

I explained to my wife that my Warden threw pointy sticks at the enemy.

“Pony sticks?!”

She was horribly disappointed when I clarified.

: Zubon

This is not a guard on patrol about to turn around. He does not move. The sentry is staring into a corner while a poorly designed outhouse sneaks up on him.

He is guarding the secret camp of the rangers, which I found unaided on my first time in the zone because there is a giant horse head marking the spot, to say nothing of the road leading there.

: Zubon

As a Hunter, lag is inconvenient. I might need to wait an extra second before an arrow fires, and I will occasionally mess up my rotation because a lag spike lasted longer than an activation/animation time. Meh, I sometimes shoot people in the face a slightly different way than expected.

As a Warden, lag is fairly horrible. Gambits key off combinations of three skills, so you could be in trouble if thrown-off timing leads to your getting the wrong skills, the wrong order, or a gambit firing before it is complete. If I need my area effect morale leech (312-4), I may really need that health, and 31-4, 32-4, 12-4, or 312-“why isn’t this firing” are not going to cut it. Those are all other gambits, one of which has a small HoT, but they are not the one I need.

Server-side lag has been problematic since the last update. Every fight or two, everything freezes for 0.5 to 2 seconds. It feels absurd to whine about 1 second delays, but that is very frequent, relatively large, and annoyance builds up. Gameplay has a rhythm, and you do not want skips several times a song. I find myself paying more attention to the UI so that lag befouls fewer gambits.

: Zubon

I do not know what it costs in these days of Turbine Points, but I received shared storage in LotRO as a part of the Siege of Mirkwood/Adventurer’s Pack deal of 2009. I may or may not have thrown some Turbine Points at expanding it, but I may if I notice a sale (otherwise: save for buying this fall’s expansion).

I had originally bought in-game housing for the shared chest, so this replaced my need for a house, and it was conveniently accessible from any vault. Upgrade! I only re-acquired housing this weekend, because I am willing to spend 1 gold plus 50 silver per week to give all my characters a convenient recall to Thorin’s Gate. The atmosphere in dwarf housing may not be the best, but it is the closest to town and a stable, and my new house is conveniently right next to the door. Upgrade!

After the 238th time of forgetting that I wanted to pass that [Drop of Amber Resin] to my Loremaster while muling, I used the new tabbed vault interface to set up what you see in the picture. Each character gets a tab (level/class indicated), and when I empty out a character’s pack of goods for alts, I just drop items on the appropriate tab. (You do not need to open each pack, just drag the item to the tab name.) 9 characters, 10 tabs, plus a main pack for unsorted items: no more forgetting items when switching characters.

This has been especially handy as I take advantage of tasks. My Warden has been gaining a level a day, so when I finish a quest hub, I dump the out-leveled vendor trash on a character who can redeem it for xp. (The same applies if I farm deeds or visit old dungeons.) I usually pass 5 to 10 tasks worth of excess vendor trash, plus change for when I play those alts again. It is not a lot of xp, but it works around the 5/day/character task limit, and the loss of silver means nothing when my level-capped character is sitting on enough gold to buy an entire neighborhood of housing.

: Zubon

The developer diary for the new upcoming LotRO instances fails to name or discuss the upcoming instances. It is almost entirely about loot and barter token drops.

Okay, how does it advertise the barter token drops? “[T]he costs for barter currency have been inflated significantly,” and that new currency is available on from quests that “reset just as though they were on the twice-a-week raid reset timer.”

The makers of Rift quake at launching in the face of such competition.

: Zubon

If you have played LotRO past the introductory instances, you are familiar with the slayer deeds (achievements). Defeat 30 wolves in The Shire to get a title; great, I will fight at least 30 while questing. Completing each unlocks an advanced version to defeat twice as many. Normal questing will probably get you somewhere in the 45 to 60 range, so you can grind a bit to complete the advanced deed and get your virtue point, maybe come back in 5-10 levels when you can farm very quickly. Then you get closer to the original endgame and the basic slayer deed is to kill 120 of something. Holy crap, kill 360 wights in Angmar, really?

The addition of skirmishes and (more) daily quests has helped this feel less grindy. Sure, I need to defeat 300+ wolves in Enedwaith, but there is a pair of daily quests that gets me at least 10, and I use those dailies to get rep, IXP, and barter items. I might be less cavalier about that prospect because my main is a Hunter, so I can casually zip around to a dozen hubs in a day, but there is a built-in way to spread out the grind and get more reward from it. It also makes those wood trolls in Enedwaith look really painful to grind, but maybe I have not found the deed for them. Skirmishes are much the same: daily reward, and those wolves in The Shire practically come to you.

: Zubon

As implied, I am leveling up a Warden in The Lord of the Rings Online. My main has always been a Hunter, and there is something distinctly annoying about having the most common class in the game. There are things that Hunters do very well, and in LotRO it really matters that travel is one of them, but there are very few that require a Hunter. Most things require a tank, and a few things require a Warden (or perhaps a Captain).

A Warden is my kind of tank, more nimble, less getting hit in the face, with some self-healing and range. The Warden’s taunt mechanic is very different from the Guardian’s. Guardians have taunts that force a target to attack them for some number of seconds. The worst Guardian in the game can still keep the boss’s aggro for X seconds out of every Y, and if DPS pulls aggro in between, he will assume he over-nuked. Wardens instead increase their threat with damage, healing, abilities that directly increase threat, and others that transfer threat from allies. A mediocre Warden will never top the threat list and cannot tank anything; you cannot dislodge targets from a great Warden without a force-taunt.

What I really like about the Warden is the gambit system. My Hunter has bar after bar of abilities, plus a couple bars of teleports before you became able to use those from the skills menu. My Warden has four main buttons, plus a few stances, ranged attacks, and toys. 1 is the Spear (offense), 2 is the Shield (defense), 3 is the Fist (taunt), and 4 is the combo. 4 changes depending on which of 1-3 you use first and in what combination: 11 is a quick stab, 213 boosts all your defenses, and 32 is an area effect taunt/DoT with a self-heal. The most celebrated Warden gambit comes at level 58: Conviction, an area effect heal and threat transfer, letting you grab aggro on every add. There is something glorious about having access to 20+ skills using only a few buttons.

Plus, Wardens are the second-best travel class. I should get access to the “Muster in…” self-teleport line of skills soon.

: Zubon