So in conclusion, Your crafted armor (EASILY OBTAINED), is on top of the list, or tied with Rift (12 man raid), and your 24 man raid set is worse than your 12 man raid, and worse than your crafted armor set that you could solo farm. Bravo Turbine, bravo!!! Tune in for book 12, when they released the Ettemoors set, which is more or less, equivalent to crafted/rift, however each piece is obtained from a scaling rank system. Starting with your first pieces obtained at Rank 2 (a few SHORT hours to get rank 2)... I'm not even going to get into the flaw of that system. Also keep in mind that the way the equipment/class design was made, you don't necessity have different sets of armor for different type of situations. So it's not like they are creating a bunch of equivalent items that you would swap in or swap out for this battle or that battle (which would be cool!!) Every single one of these damn sets gives off the same damn stats... Oy... I'm not even going to bother lol, short answer, REWARD SYSTEM = TRASH in LOTRO.
It is interesting you say that because one of the big goals for LOTRO was to give the player a real choice for end-game content. That is to say, there is equal fun and effort to be had in raiding, crafting, solo-play, PvMP, etc. I don't think Turbine has gotten to this point yet, and it will probably be an ever-evolving process, but part of the way in which they are making this happen is to create high-end armor sets for every activity at the end-game. Therefore, it is possible for every style of play to aquire end-game armor. Furthermore, this armor is supposed to be designed to have slight variations, but be equally competative with all the other sets.
I have personally looked at every set of high-end armor (crafted, raid, and PvMP) and seen variations that allow for personal preference in stat-focus, but all together offer a very comparable experience. It seems to me what you're seeing as "the same damn stats" is really this system designed to make each end-game activity competative in the armor department.
Now, you have a legitmate beef with the relative ease of getting the crafted gear. Indeed, the mirrored ancient armor goes for about 5-10 gold last I checked the AH, depending on the piece. And if you know where the named spawns are, you can get the shards (the components necessary to craft the gear) fairly easily. However, there is (or will be) a change to the way shards are droped which will make them harder to come by. As such, the price of the shards (and as a result, the gear) will rise. So, there will be a significan money sink and/or time sink to get the crafted gear, which seems to be in line with the time and money required out of raiding or PvMP play.
Check out my LOTRO Blog: www.middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com
So in conclusion, Your crafted armor (EASILY OBTAINED), is on top of the list, or tied with Rift (12 man raid), and your 24 man raid set is worse than your 12 man raid, and worse than your crafted armor set that you could solo farm. Bravo Turbine, bravo!!! Tune in for book 12, when they released the Ettemoors set, which is more or less, equivalent to crafted/rift, however each piece is obtained from a scaling rank system. Starting with your first pieces obtained at Rank 2 (a few SHORT hours to get rank 2)... I'm not even going to get into the flaw of that system. Also keep in mind that the way the equipment/class design was made, you don't necessity have different sets of armor for different type of situations. So it's not like they are creating a bunch of equivalent items that you would swap in or swap out for this battle or that battle (which would be cool!!) Every single one of these damn sets gives off the same damn stats... Oy... I'm not even going to bother lol, short answer, REWARD SYSTEM = TRASH in LOTRO.
It is interesting you say that because one of the big goals for LOTRO was to give the player a real choice for end-game content. That is to say, there is equal fun and effort to be had in raiding, crafting, solo-play, PvMP, etc. I don't think Turbine has gotten to this point yet, and it will probably be an ever-evolving process, but part of the way in which they are making this happen is to create high-end armor sets for every activity at the end-game. Therefore, it is possible for every style of play to aquire end-game armor. Furthermore, this armor is supposed to be designed to have slight variations, but be equally competative with all the other sets.
I have personally looked at every set of high-end armor (crafted, raid, and PvMP) and seen variations that allow for personal preference in stat-focus, but all together offer a very comparable experience. It seems to me what you're seeing as "the same damn stats" is really this system designed to make each end-game activity competative in the armor department.
Now, you have a legitmate beef with the relative ease of getting the crafted gear. Indeed, the mirrored ancient armor goes for about 5-10 gold last I checked the AH, depending on the piece. And if you know where the named spawns are, you can get the shards (the components necessary to craft the gear) fairly easily. However, there is (or will be) a change to the way shards are droped which will make them harder to come by. As such, the price of the shards (and as a result, the gear) will rise. So, there will be a significan money sink and/or time sink to get the crafted gear, which seems to be in line with the time and money required out of raiding or PvMP play.
If they balanced out the methods of obtain each set of armor with the appropriate time sink then I would be more supportive of the idea. But that’s hardly the case at this point in the game, basically with all things aside, your most efficient route at the moment is to just set yourself up with a full set of Lv.47 crafted gear and Helegrod/Rift becomes completely obsolete. But being that some people consider the Rift set slightly better, and the difficulty level and time involved in the Rift isn’t so bad, people still farm it. As for Helegrod, I think it’s being neglected by many at this point.
You know I understand what you are trying to say also with the balance system of allowing anyone to do anything they want, or approach things from different angles to receive the same or equal rewards; I just don’t see it working out. Who knows, maybe that’s just me? I’ve played a few MMO’s and have always participated in the end game environment. Although there should be great rewards for certain things in the game, such as Crafting, the best rewards still should come from the biggest raids in the game. Seems unfair to non-raiders, I know (I myself don’t even participate in raids often anymore, too time consuming). The reason for this type of reward system is that, if you are a non-raider, you can still craft a perfect great set of armor that allows you to perform effective in the game, however if you are a raider, what’s the incentive for raiding if the crafted/solo obtainable gear is equivalent? That’s just how it see it really, but who knows maybe LOTRO will find a way to balance it all out across the board so everyone, all types of players, can get the same or equivalent armor pieces. I just don’t see a reward system like that working out though.
You know I understand what you are trying to say also with the balance system of allowing anyone to do anything they want, or approach things from different angles to receive the same or equal rewards; I just don’t see it working out. Who knows, maybe that’s just me? I’ve played a few MMO’s and have always participated in the end game environment. Although there should be great rewards for certain things in the game, such as Crafting, the best rewards still should come from the biggest raids in the game. Seems unfair to non-raiders, I know (I myself don’t even participate in raids often anymore, too time consuming). The reason for this type of reward system is that, if you are a non-raider, you can still craft a perfect great set of armor that allows you to perform effective in the game, however if you are a raider, what’s the incentive for raiding if the crafted/solo obtainable gear is equivalent? That’s just how it see it really, but who knows maybe LOTRO will find a way to balance it all out across the board so everyone, all types of players, can get the same or equivalent armor pieces. I just don’t see a reward system like that working out though.
I think that the point of raiding, just like all the rest of the game, should be to experience the content. The gear from the raid is a secondary incentive that seems to have become a primary objective. This is entirely a value statement of opinion, which goes on to support my feelings about why raid gear shouldn't be "the best" gear in the game. I think there are a lot of secondary problems that result from having one particularly game play style incentivised moreso than the others.
To objectively evaluate the time involved in getting each gear set and then testing each gear set would take a considerable amount of time. I'm also not big on raiding, so it's not something I'd like to do, but if anybody was willing to actually invest the time it would take, I'd love to see a write up on that. In the meantime, it seems like Turbine is striking a balance.
Check out my LOTRO Blog: www.middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com
Originally posted by observer People hate it because PvMP is restricted to one zone.
I have to say that although that may sound like a negative, I think it actually works out better than having pvp combat spread out over the entire world. It helps keep things more concentrated.
~~~ Currently Playing ~~~ LOTRO- Guardian Wrymstrum & Lore-master Stabler on Nimrodel.
Conan- Zoltar <Angels of Death> Guardian on Stormrage.
You know what IS really funny. First two months and pre-release, I thought "Wow, why Eriador, it's the crappy redneck starter county for the books, the films and now a whole GAME there."
But after a while, as I realized that the devs are actually NOT just promising blue skies, but "The shadows of Angmar" is just one first piece of a large story that has, only in this first year, almost doubled its length. The answer in one of the dev chats to the question when they would introduce mounted combat, one of the devs said: "Well, we're thinking about this and it may find its way into the game with Rohan."... Not "Behold, we will release ROHAN, with epic mounted battles, add random commercial crap..."...
No, he added this like it was a granted thing. Like 'of course we'll add Rohan, what would you expect, the Lord of the Rings without the Lord of the Rings?' And this puts a smile on my face actually, together with the world map, the not-yet-finishable Book 13, 14, 15 traits, the numerous blocked ways to the south and the upcoming new area with Book 13.
This game is in heavy development, and I'm a lot more confident than during the first weeks post-release that they will bring the whole of the LotR middle-earth to life with a steady stream of new content to explore.
Comments
I have personally looked at every set of high-end armor (crafted, raid, and PvMP) and seen variations that allow for personal preference in stat-focus, but all together offer a very comparable experience. It seems to me what you're seeing as "the same damn stats" is really this system designed to make each end-game activity competative in the armor department.
Now, you have a legitmate beef with the relative ease of getting the crafted gear. Indeed, the mirrored ancient armor goes for about 5-10 gold last I checked the AH, depending on the piece. And if you know where the named spawns are, you can get the shards (the components necessary to craft the gear) fairly easily. However, there is (or will be) a change to the way shards are droped which will make them harder to come by. As such, the price of the shards (and as a result, the gear) will rise. So, there will be a significan money sink and/or time sink to get the crafted gear, which seems to be in line with the time and money required out of raiding or PvMP play.
Check out my LOTRO Blog: www.middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com
I have personally looked at every set of high-end armor (crafted, raid, and PvMP) and seen variations that allow for personal preference in stat-focus, but all together offer a very comparable experience. It seems to me what you're seeing as "the same damn stats" is really this system designed to make each end-game activity competative in the armor department.
Now, you have a legitmate beef with the relative ease of getting the crafted gear. Indeed, the mirrored ancient armor goes for about 5-10 gold last I checked the AH, depending on the piece. And if you know where the named spawns are, you can get the shards (the components necessary to craft the gear) fairly easily. However, there is (or will be) a change to the way shards are droped which will make them harder to come by. As such, the price of the shards (and as a result, the gear) will rise. So, there will be a significan money sink and/or time sink to get the crafted gear, which seems to be in line with the time and money required out of raiding or PvMP play.
If they balanced out the methods of obtain each set of armor with the appropriate time sink then I would be more supportive of the idea. But that’s hardly the case at this point in the game, basically with all things aside, your most efficient route at the moment is to just set yourself up with a full set of Lv.47 crafted gear and Helegrod/Rift becomes completely obsolete. But being that some people consider the Rift set slightly better, and the difficulty level and time involved in the Rift isn’t so bad, people still farm it. As for Helegrod, I think it’s being neglected by many at this point.
You know I understand what you are trying to say also with the balance system of allowing anyone to do anything they want, or approach things from different angles to receive the same or equal rewards; I just don’t see it working out. Who knows, maybe that’s just me? I’ve played a few MMO’s and have always participated in the end game environment. Although there should be great rewards for certain things in the game, such as Crafting, the best rewards still should come from the biggest raids in the game. Seems unfair to non-raiders, I know (I myself don’t even participate in raids often anymore, too time consuming). The reason for this type of reward system is that, if you are a non-raider, you can still craft a perfect great set of armor that allows you to perform effective in the game, however if you are a raider, what’s the incentive for raiding if the crafted/solo obtainable gear is equivalent? That’s just how it see it really, but who knows maybe LOTRO will find a way to balance it all out across the board so everyone, all types of players, can get the same or equivalent armor pieces. I just don’t see a reward system like that working out though.
To objectively evaluate the time involved in getting each gear set and then testing each gear set would take a considerable amount of time. I'm also not big on raiding, so it's not something I'd like to do, but if anybody was willing to actually invest the time it would take, I'd love to see a write up on that. In the meantime, it seems like Turbine is striking a balance.
Check out my LOTRO Blog: www.middleearthadventurer.blogspot.com
I have to say that although that may sound like a negative, I think it actually works out better than having pvp combat spread out over the entire world. It helps keep things more concentrated.
~~~ Currently Playing ~~~
LOTRO- Guardian Wrymstrum & Lore-master Stabler on Nimrodel.
Conan- Zoltar <Angels of Death> Guardian on Stormrage.
You know what IS really funny. First two months and pre-release, I thought "Wow, why Eriador, it's the crappy redneck starter county for the books, the films and now a whole GAME there."
But after a while, as I realized that the devs are actually NOT just promising blue skies, but "The shadows of Angmar" is just one first piece of a large story that has, only in this first year, almost doubled its length. The answer in one of the dev chats to the question when they would introduce mounted combat, one of the devs said: "Well, we're thinking about this and it may find its way into the game with Rohan."... Not "Behold, we will release ROHAN, with epic mounted battles, add random commercial crap..."...
No, he added this like it was a granted thing. Like 'of course we'll add Rohan, what would you expect, the Lord of the Rings without the Lord of the Rings?' And this puts a smile on my face actually, together with the world map, the not-yet-finishable Book 13, 14, 15 traits, the numerous blocked ways to the south and the upcoming new area with Book 13.
This game is in heavy development, and I'm a lot more confident than during the first weeks post-release that they will bring the whole of the LotR middle-earth to life with a steady stream of new content to explore.
Meridion