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LOTRO PvP (Monster Play)
Kazered
Member Posts: 37
Pros:
-After you get to lvl 10 you have access to 5 different monsters, all of which are lvl 50, and retain the destiny, rank, skills you purchase for them.
-Quests on your monster are challenging, difficult, and incredibly well balanced.
-Ability to capture and hold many towns, forts, keeps.
-Able to "Pimp my Monster" with unique traits, skills, powerups using destiny points.
-Destiny Pool is universal between your Hero and all your Monsters. (ie; Can do same quest with all 5 monsters, and use all the destiny you recieve from them on your Main Monster, and or Hero)
-Has a sense of monster pride, or hero pride when fighting the monsters, kinda like early DAoC Realm Pride.
-Lots of unique skills/skill sets for your monster. Unlike any other MMO out there.
Cons:
-Only 1 area you can roam on your monster.
-Death has very little recourse, on your Hero you lose Hope, on your monster no statistical disadvantage that i've found yet.
-Cookie Cutter Monsters: Everyone picks from same 5 monsters, no variety.
-Cookie Cutter Traits: Each monster has unique traits to that monster type, they are not interchangable. Lacks variety for customization.
-Able to use lvl 50 monsters at lvl 10. Increases the number of PC monsters, and limits the number of PC heros. Anyone can get to lvl 10 and play a monster, not everyone will get to lvl 40+ so that they may be the hero killing the monsters.
Overall i'm enjoying it immensly. Just trying to justify 15 bucks a month for 1 zone of pvp, with limited customization if i choose to stick with my monsters and leave my captain drunk and passed out in the prancing pony.
Kazer
"Baning Smokers from public places is like baning people from water who like to pee."
Comments
I agree the diversity between the 5 monsters isnt all that much at the moment. But once more freeps get to ettenmoor i believe you will really start noting the difference between the occasional monster player and the ones that really put some time into it. Now on the death system they have in place im a little bit skewed on. I love how your able to get right back into the action without a handicap (since we are already pretty much handicapped compared to freeps right now), but the negative effect of this is that you get folks running right into a base focussing right on the freep without paying attention to the npc's. This can be quite annoying when they run back training everything on the raid
Overall i'm really happy with monsterplay
However I think it would probably be a good idea to have a limited number of players able to play as "Leutinenant" class at any given time and give them a somewhat more anti-heroic theme. Afterall Dain Ironfoot beheaded Azog at the gates of Moria in the War of Dwarves and Orcs thus avenging the death of his father. It would be good if a player could be an Azog and a player could be Dain, but I would say only like 10% of the monster players at any one time should be able to be that anti-hero class.
For now it's just one pvp area Ettinmoor but I think I think they will add more areas via content patches in the future.
There are only 5 monster classes to choose from but Turbine said they will definitely be adding more monster types in the future.
The monsters don't have the ability to equip weapons or armor but can only purchase upgrades using destiny points. This can be a both a good thing and bad thing. A hero character can get hefty repair bills if they die to NPC monsters in Ettinmoor but not to player monsters. At level 50, your repair can go upward to 200-300 silver pieces per death. Monster players do not have this major inconvenience (you can die as many times as you want but the only thing that suffers is your PvP rating). Monsters also do not accrue dread points.
Remember tho a player hero is way lot tougher and harder to kill than a monster player. The idea here is that you are in a role of playing a monster or a servant of angmar, your monster character's stat is more akin to an npc stat than a real player stat. If you look at your character sheet instead of seeing numbers and the usual player stats you only see stat bars that can be filled up via upgrades. There's a hard cap limit to the amount of power that a monster player can achieve compared to a player which has no limit or rather the only limit is the quality of equipment he/she has.
Monster players starts off with only a few skills (2-3 skills maybe a few buffs or debuffs) while other skills and enhancements must be purchased using destiny points. Player heroes starts with all/almost all their class skill/spells and as much deeds granted abilities and enhancements that they have unlocked when they first enter ettinmoor at level 40 to PvP.
A few comments about it in no particular order.
There are very few freeps right now becuase such a tiny percentage of the playerbase has made it to 40. From what I've seen most luanch players are between 18 or so and maybe 30, only the real hardcore types have made it any higher. In a week or two I imagine things will pick up in the Etinmoors.
I'd love it if they would come out with a new monster zone, but so far it doesn't look like it's a high priority with the devs (there is a thread with Q&A on monster play over at the official site). Everyone I've talked to that's tried it loves it, so maybe if we make enough noise it will be taken off of the back burner.
The good news, on the other hand, is that they plan to release new monster types pretty soon. They have talked about two things that I recall. One that was adding a healer type. Another was adding advanced more powerful monsters (for example Trolls) that you earn the right to play either by ranking up in MPvP or by buying with destiny points. That sounds oh so super sweet to me. It is also claimed that the spider is due for a buff in the upcoming patch, it's currently considered a bit weak. You can try and glean your own insights here:
forums.lotro.com/showthread.php
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.