I have been playing LOTRO since the early closed beta stage of Shadows of Angmar (if I recall correctly, I was accepted into the beta in late November of 2006?), so I'm coming up on nearly 3 years of play. I was later invited back to Closed Beta testing for Mines of Moria and I've had several occasions to meet the devs. During that time I've played Guardian as my main, Weaver as a close second, Captain, Reaver, Champion, Burglar, Warden, Hunter, Warg, Rune-Keeper, Blackarrow, Warleader......just about everything. The game has been a lot of fun and I've enjoyed most of my time, but since the release of Mines of Moria I have been distressed and largely dissatisfied with gameplay.
I like Turbine, and I think they have made some great advances since the beginning (Customer Service for example has improved greatly) but I think as the game has gone on and new systems have been added, the game has lost some of what made it so attractive in the first place over other MMOs. At the risk of my post wandering, I'll touch on my peeves.
The Radiance System:
I hate it. HATE IT. Totally, utterly hate it. Removing this system should be Turbine's top priority. I am in one of the top raiding kinships on my server, we jump on new content immediately and have a few server firsts under our belt, so you'd think content gating wouldn't bother us as much, but it is seriously horrible. Lets look past the fact that it has completely destroyed the gear system (both crafting and farming for specific drops) for now. This system has single handedly added a ton of grind to this game. In Shadows of Angmar, skill counted for a lot with encounters, knowing your class, but gear was flexible. Now we have great players who we can't even bring into DN (or sometimes even The Watcher) because we have to run hours worth of content to gear them up. This seriously hurts players who take a break and then wish to return, they feel left out and wonder why they ever came back in the first place.
This also influences existing players......many of the great kinships on our server have broken up or fallen into inactivity and we have gotten a huge influx of applications from people who just want some people to run content to get radiance gear with. Its saddening compared to how things used to be.
It aggravates and annoys the diehards like myself. I have 4 characters that are in the 50+ range. One of them (my guardian) is geared already for DN. When I get the other three to 60, that means I have to run 6 hard mode instances times 3 (18 at least) and then the Watcher (at least) 3 times.....at least 6 if I want the full Tier 1 set for each. That also means I need to find 5 other people willing to run 18 hard modes with me, who don't need or are nice enough to let me win the coin.....then 3-6 watchers were the other 11 don't need or are nice enough to let me win the coin.......so basically I'm saying there's no reasonable time frame that I'll be able to get these alts ready to run DN, because you'll always be rolling against other players. Why do I need these alts to be able to run DN? Well, as a regular player who is familiar with several classes, if my guardian has the locks, I could jump on an alt to help out another raid out (assuming they were geared). Also, I just simply enjoy playing several different classes at endgame....but the radiance system punishes people with alts.
Every day that Turbine doesn't announce they are removing this irritating a poorly thought out system is a day I get closer to subscription cancellation. This system is literally sucking all the fun out of the game.
Legendary Items:
This system has a lot of potential and I see that Turbine is refining it, I like that. Personally I think it is too grindy still (relics for example are too much of a grind...again, especially when you're dealing with alts) but I see potential. A couple things that irritate me are that there are two legendary item levels....both the level of the item when it drops (a level 55 sword for instance) and the item of the level that is upgraded via Item Experience (a level 55 sword that is currently level 33, for example). This is irritating because as you level, you often have to deconstruct and "kill" your items and start over. It really makes this system of zero value until you reach the level cap. Personally, I think your item should level WITH you. If I acquire a legendary sword at level 50, I should be able to level that sword up to 50 (from level 1, via Item Experience, like the current system) however, when I reach level 51, that items max level should improve to 51. Currently the system allows you to add legacies at the item levels 10, 30, and 50, and then improve legacies at levels 20 and 40. Why not have the system add legacies at 52, 56, and 60, and then improve legacies at 54 and 58? This would mean the sword you found at level 52 and worked on, would level WITH you to 60, rather than becoming obsolete and all your time invested in it becoming wasted. This is exactly how the Legendary Item system SOUNDED like it was going to work when they were marketing it prior to Mines of Moria release......and this system has a great deal of potential if they would just refine it.
Other things I would do to the LI system is: any "exp spillover" that you get from your character being at level cap, should go directly into your item experience. From killing mobs or from quest turn ins. This would help eliminate the feeling of grinding across the entire game because running repeatable quests for rep or instances for the 200th time would still help you level items.
Devs:
I still like the Devs, but their input on the forums has dropped significantly. We now have community team members all over the place (bless you Sapience & Patience, I'm not saying I don't like you) and the class devs have fallen silent for the most part. I am well aware that there's plenty of idiot players who will flame no matter what, but there's some devs who can handle that and still participate (Orion, Zombie Columbus, Graal, etc). I want a return to the old ways, with Turbine reps who are class experts commenting in the class forums specifically, answering questions about class mechanics, and explaining upcoming changes. I understand this still goes on on the closed beta server, but the way it used to work on the public servers/forums was great and it was a huge point in Turbine's favor over other MMOs in my opinion.
Marketing:
I have always hated how the marketing department will not release subscription numbers. NOBODY expects the numbers to be up with WoW, so who cares. Hiding the subscription numbers has always made me think its because they have something to hide, because they are ashamed of how low they are. Get out there, post some numbers....a low population may even ATTRACT some players. It certainly isn't going to drive off existing ones. If you want to drive off existing players you're always doing it exceptionally well via radiance gating and a lack of improvements to........
PVP:
If Turbine wants this game to live beyond the Moria expansion, and if they want the Rohan expansion to post some good numbers, then they need to revamp PvP ingame NOW. They need to offer gear for creeps. They need to develop the monster side the same way the free peoples side is being developed. They need to offer a leveling system for creeps. From level one on through level cap. They need to have gear and the whole nine yards. They need to offer battlegrounds type zones. They need to offer SEVERAL different zones similar to the ettenmoors, and hire and entire team of coders to work on nothing but class balance out there. Mordor needs to be coded up and offered as a starter zone for creeps. If they really want to hold onto their subscribers and start raking in the new players, this should be given top priority. PvP is its own endgame content creator that will hold players over inbetween patch releases of PvE content. Why they don't get this and they keep stunting PvP's growth is beyond me.
In fact, I don't understand why Shadows of Angmar wasn't pushed back to give more time to work on PvP after how popular it is in other games.
Edited, Jul 16th 2009 8:41pm by Xeroproject