Review focused on endgame (detailed)

areb

Although I am currently enjoying(?) Warhammer, I have been playing LOTRO for ~6 months, compiling more than 1 month of play time on my lvl 50 captain. This time playing Warhammer has made me think about why I like LOTRO and I feel compelled to tell my experience and review the game. When I think about why I like this game, what strikes me about the game is how polished everything feels. You can tell how much thought, time, and refinement went into every aspect of the game. A lot of reviews say the same things: "great PvE", "great scenery" etc. In this review I will focus on my favourite aspects: major instances and character advancement.

Levels 1-50 -- This was quite the journey. To start you are in an instance with a story line that immediately grabs you. As you begin to level the world slowly opens up. The first group quests begin early around level 10. The first large instance is Great Barrows and is an introduction to other large instances in the game. The mobs are basically tank and spank, but if you haven't played much in a group with your class yet, it will be challenging. The 2nd instance, Garth Agarwen in the low 30s introduces bosses that require more thought and planning. At level 40 there is the Fornost instance and is the last instance before the endgame instances. I was really impressed with how content became more and more challenging as you levelled. One thing I like is beginning at level 20, there are always 2 or more zones to choose from when questing. If you get tired of North Downs, head to Lone Lands. Tired of Misty Mountains, move to Angmar. And there is certainly an abundance of content. By the time I reached, lvl 50, I had not even TOUCHED Forochel, a zone with 100s of quests.

Level 50 -- This is really the 2nd game and I enjoyed this just as much as leveling. When you reach level 50, you probably have mediocre gear, undeveloped traits, and have not finished class quests. Class quests are typically the first thing people do when they reach 50. They provide weapons (some of them excellent) and a class trait (for captains, this one is a must). This requires going into the Urugarth instance (short and sweet) and Carn DUm (longer and more challenging) to find specific items. Or you can head to the auction hall and pay a pretty penny for the items you need.

Improving gear: There are many options for getting better gear at level 50:

-The Angmar armor set can be acquired by running Uru, CD and BG (another short instance but very interesting) instance. These instances also contain other valuable armor and weapon drops.

-The Annuminas gear can be acquired by running the 3 annuminas instances. This set is very good and these instances are the most challenging 6 man instances in the game. There is an impressive amount of strategy and planning required to get through these instances.

-PvP gear is very good and can be acquired by running PvP and going into the PvP dungeon to acquire items. Some PvP jewelry is excellent and I still wear some.

-Lastly, top level crafted gear is of excellent quality, but is very expensive and difficult to craft. Crafted armor is underrated IMO and 2nd only to the rift. Crafted jewelry on the other hand is recognized as being top quality. Acquiring Etched Beryl jewelry can take a loooong time. But in the meantime you can equip yourself with jewelry acquired through quests, or some of the other crafted jewelry such as Polished Beryl or Ancient Silver jewelry.

-But some of the best gear can be acquired from the raids which I will talk about later.

In addition...

Book Quests: This is the main storyline of the game, and provides hours and hours of content at lvl 50. This is a combiniation of solo play, small group and full group play. Some of the gear found here is extremely good and useful. This is also the main storyline of the game and provides some very interesting and emotional moments, even if you are like me and don't read the quests.

Battle Instances: These are 3 instances where you defend a position (and sometimes have to attack at the same time). These were released just a couple months ago and are unique because there is randomness to the attacks, so they require thinking on your feet. This is a contrast to the typical predictibilty of most instances. The main reward here is jewelry, some of which is highly coveted.

Helegrod: This is the 24-man raid in the game and although not one of my favourites, is very fun the first few times you do it. The armor set you can acquire here is generally considered 2nd only to the rift. This gear is also one of the few sets that is bind on equip, and sells very high at the auction hall.

Rift: This is the 12-man raid, and provides the best gear and most challenging content in the game. Do not come in here unless you are confident in your playing abilities and are comfortable playing in a group. The rift requires a team who knows what they are doing and an experienced leader. All the previous instances in the game lead up to this raid. There are no trivial fights or mobs in the rift. Even the trash mobs require knowledge of specific buffs and kill orders. The final fight against the Balrog takes more than 1/2 hour and is one of the most exciting and rewarding fights in the game. This instance resets every week and for many guilds this is THE weekly event.

In addition to instances...

Public Dungeons: Public dungeons (Haudh Iarchith, Sarnur, Goblin Town, Delving of Fror) are unique because you can grind deeds, rep, and find beryl shards often all in the same place. Some parts of them are soloable, some can be done with a small group, and while other parts demand a full group. Goblin town is a unique place and while you don't have to be level 50 to explore it, it is still popular for lvl 50s. If you ever want to get lost exploring a DEEP dungeon with quest chains buried within, head to goblin town. If you dig deep enough you will find a mini-instance buried inside! Go a little bit deeper and you will find Gollum's cave.

Deeds: If you really want to max out your character you will spend a lot of time grinding deeds to acquire traits which improve your stats. This is truly is a grind, killing hundreds of specific kinds of mobs in specific areas. Best done in groups with lots of AoE dmg. I will admit that some of these are an awful time completing (crawlers in the Trollshaws anyone?)

Reputation: Another grind, but some of the rewards for rep are cool. These are mostly cosmetic items such as horses or house items.

As you can see much of the endgame is centered around acquiring better gear. The gear and instances are not tiered, meaning it's wide open what you can choose to do! Although the rift gear is considered the best, some people choose only to wear 2 or 4 pieces of the gear in favour of other gear. Jewelry is wide open and is where you can really customize your character. And there is no "best" build for any character. You could conceivably have 2 characters with top level gear with no items in common. sure, you can't go wrong with a set of rift armor, but each class has a variety of jewelry to choose from. This is one thing I love because by changing a few pieces of jewelry and traits, I can change from a raiding captain to a tough soloing captain. And I can still inspect a person and see a piece of gear that I've never seen before and wonder where it came from.

Another thing of note is I have done most of the endgame content in PUGs. If you are not in a large guild you can still enjoy all the content the game has to offer.

It took probably ~150 hours (an estimate) to reach level 50 with a slow and steady approach while doing crafting. Hundreds more hours spent on the end-game content. Truly I have enjoyed experiencing this game. There is lots of stuff I have only touched on such as crafting, the auction hall, cosmetic items + housing, and PvP which is a testament to the depth in this game.

To balance this review I will mention the negatives about the game IMO:

- Sometimes too much kill X mob grinding (north downs wargs, deeds, reputation)

- Armor just looks bad on dwarves.... poor little guys

- You need to be patient if you want to complete the group content, both finding groups and completing the instances which can take a lot of time

- Instances become easy for experienced groups with top level gear. Degree of difficulty could be increased and I expect it to go up for Mines of Moria end game content.

Cody777

Good job with the review. I’ve been playing the game for 11 months or so and have 1 level 50 and not one piece of rift gear mainly because my computer doesn’t support that many people killing that many mobs at the same time.

Papadam

Damn, I have been thinking about writing a review about the current state of Lotro but it seems I dont have to... I agree with most things you said and think it was very well written (and I have a lvl 50 captain aswell)! There are some more negative aspects of the game that you didnt mentioned but overall Im impressed!

Now bring on Mines of Moria! Making one of the best MMOs on the market even better!

musicman2000

Aye very well written -- impressive, I've got only one thing to add -- PvMP also is included in end game.  Earning ranks in PvP will allow you to purchase epic armour pieces as well comparable to the Helegrod raid set.    You purchases these pieces with 3 different kinds of stones you loot in the PvE dungeon inside the PvP zone the MOors.   That dungeon sports some very difficult and underexplored raid encounters that require up to 24 people as well.  Most folks farm the easier bosses for teal stones to get their gear though.  This dungeon is also available to those on creep side who use the stones to purchase new skills and qualities.    At rank 9 you can also get a really cool horse too

Lots of fun to be had in this game to be sure!

 

Kyleran

Great review, sounds like they've really done a fine job with the end game content.  You also confirmed that I was correct in leaving so long ago, as I could see where the road was heading, and that wasn't a path I wished to travel.

But thanks for sharing this review, was interesting to read about the places I'll never see.

 

Cropper

Originally posted by Kyleran


Great review, sounds like they've really done a fine job with the end game content.  You also confirmed that I was correct in leaving so long ago, as I could see where the road was heading, and that wasn't a path I wished to travel.
But thanks for sharing this review, was interesting to read about the places I'll never see.
 

 

This is how I felt about it too.  It's a good game with smart developers who's vision isn't really the game I want to play.  I'd always recommend anyone interested in trying lotro to do so because it may be a game they love and for me I never regretted playing it, even though I quit I feel like I more than got my moneys worth out of it.

Nice review, goodluck and happy hunting to all of you that still play or who are interested in playing.

Redline65

Great job at summing up the overall LOTRO experience, areb. Well done!

Jackdog

good review. One thing is for sure anyone who says that once you reach 50 there is nothing to do should probably not be playing MMO's. It may not be what you want to do but there is certainly an abundance of things to do.

I have been playing since launch and have 2 lvl 50's both of which are still being fine tuned as far as gear, traits, reputation and craft skills. To be fair though I did go back to EQII for about 3 months this last summer just for a change of pace and breifly played AoC for a month. Still I doubt if between the 2 LoTRO lvl 50 characters I have done more than 80% of the available quests and due to my play style and time available I have never been in either Helgrod or the Rift. Still like this morning i run across areas of the game I have never seen before.

DaPrinz

Awesome review! One of the best out there! 

I've been wanting to join LOTRO for quite sometime now. I played the BETA too.

Mikeha

I always wondered what end game was like and you did a fine job of showing it.

ronbr

Great review indeed, LOTRO is one of my favourites MMOs, spent a lot of time and had a lot of fun playing it. Just needed a break after 3 lv.50 chars (6 GM craft proficiences), but I have already preordered Moria and can`t wait to be back. Meanwhile I casually play AoC, but for some reason AoC can`t take my interest as much as LOTRO. Another thing to consider is, when compared to other MMOs, LOTRO is almost bugless.