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Mines of Moria: the pros and cons
Papadam
Member Posts: 2,102
Mines of Moria: the pros and cons
With the upcoming release of the first expansion to Lord of the rings Online, there will be a lot of changes to the game! But change is not always a good thing and a lot of people are worried ever since the NDA of the MoM beta was released.
I have not played the BETA so I'm basing this on what I have read on the forums and from the information released by Turbine. This is just my preview on what we can expect from the expansion and I hope it will give some good information on what to expect from Mines of Moria.
Pros (or what makes us excited)
Of course the biggest draw with the expansion is Moria itself. Its not just a dungeon, its not just a dark cave with some orcs in it. It is a huge underground kingdom with a lot of different zones that you can move through seamlessly. With Eregion and Lothorien also included with the expansion there will be a lot of new areas for us to explore.
2 new classes: Both the Warden and the Rune Keeper seems like very challenging and fun classes to play with new game play mechanics that will truly set them apart from the other classes. This will also make the low level zones more populated so new players will have more people around to group with.
Trait sets: LotrO currently lacks character specialization and everyone playing the same classes have very similar builds. This will change with MoM with the inclusion of trait sets. Every class get 3 different sets that will give you certain bonuses for equipping traits from those sets but you can still mix and match as you like to make it fit the way you play.
LEGENDARY ITEMS. OK I had to use caps for this one since in my opinion this seems like one of the best features ever! Thees items/weapons will level with you and act as a quest hub and you will be able to customize and name your own legendary item. This system opens up even more forms of specialization and will make your character unique. It seems like a feature for both the casual players since you can just jump in and work on your legendary sword when you get 30 min free, but also for the more “hardcore” players who will have plenty do with level up and improve up to 6 different legendary items. There will also be several solo-instances where you can improve your legendaries.
PvMP revamp: It seems like the turbine devs really have listened to the PvP player base to improve Ettenmoors. I think this revamp will change the way PvMP is played and will make it a more balanced and enjoyable experience. Thou the lack of actual new content to PvP is a concern!
Cons (or what makes us worried)
Class balance: With 2 new classes, the new trait sets and the changes to combat will all effect how the class balance will work. From the beta reports it seems some classes are very happy with what they get (Captains, Hunters) while others are VERY disappointed (Minstrels, Lore masters). Its still in Beta so we don’t know yet how it will be a release but there are reasons to be worried.
“The lore”: Since the game is based on the most loved fantasy literature ever written there always will be discussion about how true Turbine stays to the books. Since only a small part of Moria is described in the books there is a lot of room for Turbine to come up with their own creations. The Rune keeper is also a hot topic for debate since its more of a magical class and could be considered lore breaking.
End Game: Ah yes the dreaded word in LotrO. This is also one of the games biggest weaknesses even if we saw big improvements with the latest content update (Book 14). The focus of the expansion seems to be solo content and 3/6-man content. I think its really nice that they are adding several dungeons for smaller groups. The big worry is that MoM only includes 1 raid for 12 people, and that its only 1 boss in it (even thou its long and very hard). Will this be enough for the more “hardcore” players or will they be screaming for new content 1 month from now? To access this raid you need to get gear with radiance on it (Hope) that you can get from the 6 group instances. This is a departure from LotrOs current design where gear is not that important and you are never locked out of content just because you don’t have to best gear, if this is good or bad is up for debate.
Overall I think the expansion will really prove that LotrO is one of the top MMOs with a bright future and hopefully Turbine will keep listening to the players to fix whatever issues Moria will bring.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Comments
I agree with all of your post and am looking forward to it myself. You missed a Con though IMO anyway by them adding more levels into the game. They could have just added more stuff to do at 50 but nope have to do 10 more levels.
This also means if you want to make a brand new Alt you must do 60 levels instead of 50. It just really bothers me to know that once the xpac is relaeased I will probably never run any of the level 50 raids again which I enjoyed alot.
So in a sense by adding more levels they are virtually removing old content and putting in new content. Anyone that disagrees look at other MMO's with Xpacs I had a blast doing raids in pre-BC WOW for example but noone does that stuff anymore.
Sorry for the rant but hate to see awesome content virtually die when I enjoyed and still enjoy it so much.
Playing- Guild Wars 2, SWTOR
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Pros: Obviously more content, dungeon crawling, quite a few instances, new classes, legendary items. One other thing that sounds good to me: they are making the mobs a lot harder (especially for Minstrels and Loremasters). Everyone likes a challenge. This could backfire though, and if it does it Turbine may turn the game into ez-mode again.
Cons: Now, I no longer play the game, but a few things I'll comment on. The rep grind... it's nothing new, and they are adding tons of it. You need to grind rep for mounts, traits, travel routes, etc... /snooze. Another thing, the legendary items grind. You can have a total of 6 legendaries, so you'll need to grind out the weapon levels 6 times per character if you want to have the maximum number of weapons... and honestly, since the legendary items offer a lot of customization, I can see a lot of people having different weapons for different builds. Have 5 level 50 toons? Have fun grinding 30 weapons to max level, and it's not something can be done quickly.
now what i want to know is why dont the devs simply raise the mobs to lvl 60? the drops may be scaled up but only for slightly betyter than quest stuff. i can see that working to their advantage as it gives them 4(?) extra raid instances at launch and gives them more breathing space to make other Mines raids (of which i can forsee a hell of a lot, its an underground kingdom filled with goblins and who knows what down there). also keeping those instances at 50 is utterelly pointless as no one will do them (except maybe the smaller ones).
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
There seems to be a connectin between the problems of LM and Minstrels and legendary items.
Basically they both have a large portion of legacies be DPS focused. So in order to mitigate the huge nerf to DPS as a minstrel you have to level up a DPS focused legendary.
The flaw is that minstrels will go back to be being as bad as they were pre-50.
Yeah almost everything is linked to a significant rep grind like friend or more. Most new legendaries. And both new mounts are all part of rep grinds.
Not good, I hate the rep ssytem in LOTRO. Needing to have reputation to turn in the reputation items that give reputation is completely stupid. I wish I could actually use the War Dispatches that keep dropping for me.
Having both a 50 minstrel and a 50LM I am a bit concerned. The minstrel is mostly group oriented as far as the way I set up his traits and all anyway so no biggie but I enjoy soloing the LM. Only time will tell I suppose but I will be making a Rune Master and I have a hunter I am lvling up anyway so we shall see. Anyway it is just a game, not my life.
In regard to the grind of rep I only grind the reps I need or want to the lvl I want to accomplish what I want. There are several factions which are not past aquaintence for any of my mains and don't seem to affect my play in the least. For the ones I did feel the need to lvl I made a crap load of money in the process. Like I have said for years on this board and not just about LoTRO but years before. MMO's are nothing more than some thing to do online with friends. They are not meant to be mentally challangiung or require a lot of physical dexterity they are simply time consuming and I might as well be watching the silver roll in grinding rep while chatting as anything else.
In regard to the 24 man instances...yawn.. if I want 24 man instances there is always WOW or EQII. I play LoTRO so I can dungeon crawl with a couple of friends on a weekday night not so I have to devote 6 + hours not counting the hassle of getting 24 players organized so I could give a flying rats rear about the raids that are there already. More 3 and 6 man dungeons is much more to my liking.
Just my 2 coppers of course..
I miss DAoC
Pretty good post overall, but I had to disagree partially with the quoted part above. This is only true for some classes, some like the Loremasters and Minstrels have class trait trees that contain serious debuffs to selecting them and funnel attributes in such ways that there will be far less specialization and more cookie cutter builds. The loremasters are discussing that their trait tree is evidently goofy with questionable advantages and some arrangements that don't make sense.
Overall it seems like the popular classes or the new classes are getting a lot to be happy about, and the already underplayed essential group role classes are going to become even rarer.
Pretty good post overall, but I had to disagree partially with the quoted part above. This is only true for some classes, some like the Loremasters and Minstrels have class trait trees that contain serious debuffs to selecting them and funnel attributes in such ways that there will be far less specialization and more cookie cutter builds. The loremasters are discussing that their trait tree is evidently goofy with questionable advantages and some arrangements that don't make sense.
Overall it seems like the popular classes or the new classes are getting a lot to be happy about, and the already underplayed essential group role classes are going to become even rarer.
If you are referring to LM and Minstrel as under played what server are you on. Last night we did book 6.8 for some kin and we had 2 Minstrels 2 LM's a Burglar and a Captain LOL. Not exactly the holy trinity but we did fine
Looks like with the minstrel you can go as warrior skald which would maintain the jack of all trades . Trust me a Minstrel with War speech on can kill pretty damn efficiently. Then there is the Watcher of Resolve trait line which I will be using on my Minstrel. it is primarily group oriwented and adds a much need HoT which I have been begging for since Beta2. The third trait set Protector of Song and you would be primarily working as a buffer. Not sure about this one at all.
With LM looks like with one set you will primarily relying on your pet, the second set concentrates on direct damage and the third would be more as a group oriented debuffing role. I will probably go the DD route with my LM unless the pet enhancements look more the way to go for solo oriented play .
Either way, a good group oriented MInstrel will always be appreciated and that was my main concern. For those that like to group with their LM's looks liek the debuff route will be the ticket.
I miss DAoC
I don't know as much about Minstrels, but the Minstrel forums are up in arms about perceived loss of solo-ability. They certainly are gong to take very hard hits from the nerfing of tactical crit and tactical damage.
Since all the essential LM curing skills got dumped in the pet tree, the debuffing build isn't going ot be too popular when they can't remove that wound which will kill you in a few second, or keep stuns/silence off the main tank and healer. Yeah, all the LMs will be going at least halfway up the pet tree to group except when there are no stuns or wounds to worry about. Plus a Loremaster who can't mez or cure wounds/disease/stun/silence? They're going to be as popular as the warty old woman who doesn't go out in public.
Burglars got the gambler trait tree, nobody will be using it for long. Then you have either the cookie cutter soloing build, or grouping build. Not going to find very many differences in build there.
So for making players different from each other, this is rating a big FAIL.
I don't know as much about Minstrels, but the Minstrel forums are up in arms about perceived loss of solo-ability. They certainly are gong to take very hard hits from the nerfing of tactical crit and tactical damage.
Since all the essential LM curing skills got dumped in the pet tree, the debuffing build isn't going ot be too popular when they can't remove that wound which will kill you in a few second, or keep stuns/silence off the main tank and healer. Yeah, all the LMs will be going at least halfway up the pet tree to group except when there are no stuns or wounds to worry about. Plus a Loremaster who can't mez or cure wounds/disease/stun/silence? They're going to be as popular as the warty old woman who doesn't go out in public.
Burglars got the gambler trait tree, nobody will be using it for long. Then you have either the cookie cutter soloing build, or grouping build. Not going to find very many differences in build there.
So for making players different from each other, this is rating a big FAIL.
ever read a book called called "Who Moved My Cheese'?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Moved_My_Cheese
It should be required reading for the sky is falling players. Turbine is not going to make all the old classes useless with the expansion. they do have to make some allowances because of the new trait system and Legendary weapon system for balance purposes.
To pit it simply I think you are reading too much into it. Just because say you spec out in DD as a LM does not mean you cannot call a pet. just like that the LM specced out with his lvl 50+ traits in pet ability will still be able to throw DD's and Dot's and still stun. The base abilities that come with lvl gained, just that you will slot traits for additional skills, just like now. I cannot call a eagle with my LM because I do not have that trait slotted.
Half my kinship was in the beta and quite frankly I have known most of these guys and gals for years now some I was in SWG beta and live with and others from EQII and Horizons. A couple of them have 50 LM's and Minstrels and I talked one few minutes ago and she said not to sweat it. Quite frankly I trust her judgement and my other kin who were testers and they don't seem to be upset by from the changes so I am not going to worry about the average "the sky is falling" forum trolls. But feel free to worry all you want if it makes you happy.
I miss DAoC
Wow, that was a straw man attack if ever I saw one.
Who said anything about making old classes useless?
I know some people feel the need to defend Turbine for everything, but seriously there are some issues in this expansion and one of them is that the increased diversity of builds they advertised is not going to happen for many classes.
P.S.- over half my kin is in beta too. This is a big part where the minstrel concerns are coming from.
I'm in the beta. The sky is not falling. LM is still a foaming badass. Can't speak to the minst, don't have one.
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.
As far as the class balance goes I am not in beta so I dont know exactly how bad it will be. After reading several forums and hearing all the complaints I have been working more on my burg lately and have a gaurd just in case.
If mins are gonna suck I dont wanna have to gear and trait up other classes when the xpac goes live. I am sure if there is a problem with some classes they will fix it but I will not be playing my min at the start.
Rep grinds dont really bother me other than you need them for the swift travel but I can do it casual.
Also good point in raising the mobs in level 50 dungeons to 60 and they could even add new gear sets. They could add the option to maybe even do it as level 50 or as 60 like a heroic mode or something.
Lots and lots of 3-6 man dungeons would make me very happy though and I may possibly be able to accept the fact that the level 50 content will die.
Lotro level 50 Dungeons -RIP Nov 18th 2008
Playing- Guild Wars 2, SWTOR
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No offense but some posters were making it sound as if if you went with the pet line of traits you would have no DD , if you went debuff you would not have a pet etc etc.... and that is just false. The traits simply allow you to add in a couple of new abilities, the base skills are still the same.
as far as the minstrel Turbine is listening and responding to beta tester concerns
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
I hate to use this often abused phrase. but it is still beta. They have another 18 days top make adjustments to before launch and can always patch in DPS tweaks even post launch when they have greater amounts of data to base the tweaks on.
I miss DAoC
The biggest Pro, from the time that i did play, is the Book 1 scene at the Hollin Gate. If you read the books or saw the movies, you should know what i'm talking about.
Also worth mentioning are the Combat changes. Block, Parry, Evade, Armour is different now. There's also the new Devastate, which is a critical hit. Radiance and Gloom is replacing Hope and Dread also i think.
If any info i posted is incorrect, let me know, it's been awhile since i logged on beta.
I see the biggest mistake of Moria expansion to be the trait sets. Why did they decide to remove the old system where every class could choose from the pool of traits and customize it any way they like. Yes, some traits were weaker and some stronger, but why not Turbine instead balanced them out. They rather give us this linear trait sets.
Pretty good post overall, but I had to disagree partially with the quoted part above. This is only true for some classes, some like the Loremasters and Minstrels have class trait trees that contain serious debuffs to selecting them and funnel attributes in such ways that there will be far less specialization and more cookie cutter builds. The loremasters are discussing that their trait tree is evidently goofy with questionable advantages and some arrangements that don't make sense.
Overall it seems like the popular classes or the new classes are getting a lot to be happy about, and the already underplayed essential group role classes are going to become even rarer.
The LM trait tress are a little funky in that the Healing traits are part of the animal tree but DPS has its own tree with HUGE drawback in that it completely ruins your mez. I can understand trading some CC for ~35% damage increase. But since resist are so high in MoM I am not sure that is a great idea. Only Rune Keeper has the passives to truly effective to tactical skills. The debuff line of LM kind of sucks, but the 5 trait legendary is fiarly good.
There is specialization in the LM tree but I don't know that its all that sane.
The Minstrel on the other hand sucks. And will have two cookie cuttters. One for Solo, one for healing. And the solo one will be heavily dependent on every one getting essentially the same legandary setup. The LM has the same problem with legendaries as well.
The minstrel one is bad, its cookie cutter x 2. The LM one is a bit whacky with some potential for cookie cutter.
At least minstrels are getting some attention though. Huge threads go completely ignored for LM no matter where they start them, Beta, LM forum, MoM forum. But minstrels are worse off too.
Pretty good post overall, but I had to disagree partially with the quoted part above. This is only true for some classes, some like the Loremasters and Minstrels have class trait trees that contain serious debuffs to selecting them and funnel attributes in such ways that there will be far less specialization and more cookie cutter builds. The loremasters are discussing that their trait tree is evidently goofy with questionable advantages and some arrangements that don't make sense.
Overall it seems like the popular classes or the new classes are getting a lot to be happy about, and the already underplayed essential group role classes are going to become even rarer.
If you are referring to LM and Minstrel as under played what server are you on. Last night we did book 6.8 for some kin and we had 2 Minstrels 2 LM's a Burglar and a Captain LOL. Not exactly the holy trinity but we did fine
Looks like with the minstrel you can go as warrior skald which would maintain the jack of all trades . Trust me a Minstrel with War speech on can kill pretty damn efficiently. Then there is the Watcher of Resolve trait line which I will be using on my Minstrel. it is primarily group oriwented and adds a much need HoT which I have been begging for since Beta2. The third trait set Protector of Song and you would be primarily working as a buffer. Not sure about this one at all.
With LM looks like with one set you will primarily relying on your pet, the second set concentrates on direct damage and the third would be more as a group oriented debuffing role. I will probably go the DD route with my LM unless the pet enhancements look more the way to go for solo oriented play .
Either way, a good group oriented MInstrel will always be appreciated and that was my main concern. For those that like to group with their LM's looks liek the debuff route will be the ticket.
If you think Warrior Skald is going to be anything close to current War speech without getting the level 58 rep grinded legendary trait and leveling up a legendary weapon to a decent degre.
Then you are in for a rude awakening unless things change. Your tactical skills will do WAY less damage, and you only have one melee attack.
Even if you tweak everything to get to a decent amout of damage. It will be extremely boring to play. And you won't do it until level 58 at best.
They seriously neuterd the DPS and it can only get fixed through a level 58 legendary and going full on DPS only on one of your legendaries. And the developers think this is fine.
Their is only one way to get back to even half-way decent solo damage. Pure cookie cutter. Even worse you can't get there without being like level 58.
It is assinine. They put minstrels back into the Pre-war speech box, even though they still have war speech. They even said they were bringing the Minstrel back to it Healing roots.
I wish they would let you turn off a trait set bonus. I can see slotting three of my LM Nature's fury traits because they are good traits and frnakly I would rather NOT have the 10% fire DPS increase so that i can avoid the hug epenalty on my Mez. Just have that trait set "bonus" get completely turned off.
I see no reason to force people to use the trait set system really. Usually most penalties come in at around 3 traits but by simply turning off the bonuses you can just let people do their traits the old way. And none of the old traits are powerful enough that it would make a difference. Only the set bonuses are powerful enough for that.
I'm very happy that my post sparked som debate here since it was my intension and a lot of good points have been made so far so keep it up!
Just want to point out that the expansion havent been released yet and that Turbine will have had over a month of bug fixing/balancing to do between the NDA lift and the release!
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
@gestalt - that is fine by me I leveled my minnie up to 50 using a mix of group and solo play pre war speech. My respeccing mine up as a group oriented anyway since I find other classes more fun solo but minnie is my favorite group class. Also I guess you ,must have missed or skipped my post where I linked to the Devs saying they were re evaluating the minstrel DPS but here are the links again
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
forums.lotro.com/showpost.php
on the LM traits from what I have read on the forums if you go the DPS route as I am planning there are other CC to make up for the lack of blinding flash.
here is another good thread from the official boards and on one of the pages one of the testers cautions about forming too many opinions on the blinding flash nerf before seeing what other tools were improved.
forums.lotro.com/showthread.php
At any rate Turbine was pretty good after the initial release at going back and tweaking as needed on classes, I see no reason they will not do so after Moria after they get a chance to see how the classes play out in their metrics and from forum feedback. I remember at LoTRO's initial release Captains were a joke and LM 's were probably the most difficult to play effectivly. Every one was either hunter, minstrel, burglar or guardian it seemed. A few champs in my kinship but no really many of those either at release.
Sorry if I come off sounding as if Turbine can do no wrong but going from SWG to Horizons to EQII to the LoTRO beta kinda made a Turbine fan boy out of me I am afraid.
Anyway I have a hunter that I made at release and never took past 15 so it is time to start to lvl him up I guess.
I miss DAoC
In this day and age people don't have to accept 'but it now and we'll go back and fix it later'. It just isn't a winner's mentality. I mean the Loremaster beta testers came right out and said they don't even know who the Loremaster dev is as there has been 0 communication about the class through the beta process. Does that instill a lot of confidence? A loremaster in my raiding kin has been ranting about the traits being arranged so DPS-threat reducing traits are in a trait path with no damage abilities, and all the curing traits we depend on are in the pet path we wouldn't have him touch normally when raiding with us.
Burglars have a trait path they've admitted is broken for release. Some zones like Lothlorien won't be finished for release. Major nerfs across the board to everyone's abilities (other than damage which is why everyone including you is rolling a hunter) as soon as they patch to the expansion.
There is a lot of good stuff in this expansion that I like, but overall it sounds like they're in a rush to launch it well before it is ready.
In this day and age people don't have to accept 'but it now and we'll go back and fix it later'. It just isn't a winner's mentality.
class DPS tweaks can only come after it has been tested live with live player base and large amounts of metric data. That is why classes get what is known as stealth nerfs and stealth tweaks. If I remember correctly you played a Captain at one time and they were crap at launch till they were tweaked and polished after launch
I am of the mind that the LM shit is highly overblown mostly by people who were not in beta and are have not played the LM live to 60 with legendary weapons yet. The minstrel seems to be valid and has already been acknowledged by the devs on the official forums and changes are planned as they get more metric data.
Anyway as soon as you used the term raiding it turned on my who gives a damn light. If you want a rading game I would be playing WoW or EQII if I were you. Much better choices in my opinion for that game style. They could delete all the raid dungeons in LoTRO and it would not affect my opinion of the game in the least.
I miss DAoC
In this day and age people don't have to accept 'but it now and we'll go back and fix it later'. It just isn't a winner's mentality.
class DPS tweaks can only come after it has been tested live with live player base and large amounts of metric data. That is why classes get what is known as stealth nerfs and stealth tweaks. If I remember correctly you played a Captain at one time and they were crap at launch till they were tweaked and polished after launch
I am of the mind that the LM shit is highly overblown mostly by people who were not in beta and are have not played the LM live to 60 with legendary weapons yet. The minstrel seems to be valid and has already been acknowledged by the devs on the official forums and changes are planned as they get more metric data.
Anyway as soon as you used the term raiding it turned on my who gives a damn light. If you want a rading game I would be playing WoW or EQII if I were you. Much better choices in my opinion for that game style. They could delete all the raid dungeons in LoTRO and it would not affect my opinion of the game in the least.
Then explain why the threat reduction trait is in the tree that is least likely to cause threat?
The LM traits are whacked. But part of that is because they came up with a design for the traits that does not fit that class. Some traits should not be in any tree or should apply to all tree, like the threat reduction trait. LM also have more than 3 roles so they had to smoosh everything not damage and not debuffs into the pet tree.
Its just kind of borked and they know so they refuse to say anything.
Er you realize it is the Beta LMs that are the most upset about zero communication right?
I don't really care all that much I don't see the current setup hurting my LM that much and legendary items will be cool. But I recognized a borked and awkward setup when I see it.
Your debating fall on deaf ears here; assuming you want something to actually change. And If you do want something to possibly change, post on the official forums. The devs DO read the forums, though they may not post. If enough people complain, there is a good chance something will be done about it.