Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Trait grinding: is it worth it for a casual player?
BattleFelon
Member UncommonPosts: 483
I've played LOTRO now for about a month 1/2 casually and am nearing level 30. So far I've had a lot of fun, but recently I've realized my trait levels are lagging way behind my actual level. I've mostly been concentrating on leveling up so I can at least see Moria and Mirkwood, but now I hear from veteran players that I should be doing a lot more grinding and exploring to get key virtues.
So here's my question: how important are traits if you're not going to do a lot of high end raid content? While I need high virtues to even solo when I'm in my 40s and 50s? Finally, can grinding out virtues actually help me level much faster, or am I just looking at extra grind?
Thanks for any help or suggestions.
Comments
Traits are helpful without a doubt especially the legendary traits you can get later in the game. Having said that, mine are not the best in the game my any means and im doing well in Lothlorien.
No. You can actually easily make it to level 65 without worrying too much about any special armor or leveling your virtues. They just make things easier. I didnt start looking at my until I got to the late 50s. A lot of them willl pop up automatically just by killing things and exploring. If you ignore all the"look what I have, a first age legendary bow", you can still enjoy what you have either armor wise or virtue wise and enjoy the game to the end. I will say however that the legendary traits help A LOT, so I recommend working on those.
There Is Always Hope!
Well you can grind them later like I did and make them go really fast or do them now and the buff is like having an extra piece of jewellery up to you.
I admire turbine for building in a different system but even at level 65 some of the trait grinds are horrible. I can think of nothing more boring than sitting grinding the same mobs to complete one skill up in a skill system. Some of the class ones you can only do 25x a day or 50x but the skill cd is 30 seconds one of mine means also I have to be half health before I can use it.
To me this is absolute dullness theres no fun in it. No one I know enjoy's it people ask others wanna go here? Answer: No sorry have to finish up this stupid f trait.
I wouldn't say that traits are game-changing important, but they do make a difference. Personally, I don't put a whole lot of concentrated effort into achieving them, but there are certain ones that I do actively work on. The ones that directly deal with my tanking abilities come to mind(on my Guard).
Otherwise, I just take them as I get them, or may work on them as a past time when my group of friends/clan aren't to be found.
DarkFall FAQ - Read then Question with Boldness
i picked 1 or 2 i enjoyed or really needed and grinded those every once in a while. That way one or two traits where roughly up to date at all times and i had fun grinding em (kill X orcs is always a blast, so is killing trolls)
MMO wish list:
-Changeable worlds
-Solid non level based game
-Sharks with lasers attached to their heads
I pick one or two that pertain to the area that I'm in and I set them as watched solely to have a neat passive incrementing counter on screen.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
Depends. Virutes are not a big deal I never ever grind them. Some classes have some decent but not killer traits, I don't really feel all that attached to any particular warden trait for example. And then there are traits like Lore of the Blade which are must haves. A loremaster without lore of the blade is just heart breaking. Actually it is kind of bad because there are literally no LM that do not slot that trait making it not even a customization and defeating the purpose.
it isn't that bad. I normally don't go out of my way to level up traits because most of them just level up naturally as I try to complete all the quests. Sometimes when there's groups going on for any traits and I have time to spare I'll join them and finish up leveling a trait in 10 mins.
guys you don't have to trait grind.
You can just play the game and when you have, through the course of play, killed x amount of y, then you will have upgraded that trait.
I think this is a great example of why players have problems with mmo's. Instead of just playing the game they find out specific things that they want and set out to single mindedly do them, even if it means staying in a cave and not budging until they have killed 200 trolls.
I'm pretty sure that through the course of playing a player will have eventually killed 200 trolls.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Only Virtues are a pan. Class and Racial come naturally. Virtues are a pain because they are for the most part zone locked. Like kill 60 spiders in the SHIRE. I have killed 100;s of spiders but it doesnt count unless its in the Shire. Or the exploration deeds that are also connected to virtue traits.
Virtues need a revamp but I wouldnt worry about Traits they just happen.
Racial traits are a must. You want that extra travel power as soon as you can get it. Some of the other racial traits are also quite nice. For example, hobbits get a feign death ability that very useful (though elves do sort of get the shaft, their once per hour racial is somewhere between "meh" and useless depending on what class you are playing).
Legendary traits you won't be able to make much progress on until the late 30s.
Class traits you should be working on. Few of them look all that great on paper, but their combined effects can be very powerful. If you aren't already spamming certain attacks and abilities to open those up, you should be.
Virtues are not worth going out of you way for at low levels imo. You can fill them out much more quickly at high levels, and you won't have enough options to max most of them out until at least level 45 or 50 in any case.
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.
Like others have said I'd keep an eye out on your race traits - each race has at least one thing you'll want if it's only the travel skill.
For class traits I'd open up your trait window and click on the class tab. Then cycle through the three sets using the bottom tabs and figure out what you might want to work towards. You should actually have quite a few already done but this will give you an idea of what legendaries you want to work towards.
For virtues - I do it a bit different - I figure out which 5 I want for the character I'm working on and just work those. Around level 50 or so I do a reassessment and go finish up anything pertaining to a new virtue I want to slot. For example, Loyalty, Empathy, Idealism, Valour, and Justice are no brainers for a new character. Gives you morale, power, armor, vitality, and fate - which can all be valuable in the beginning.
Be aware that you get extra quest slots in your tracker based on the number of deeds you've finished.
It depends on if you think that extra 3 agility or whatever is going to make any difference at all. At endgame having 5 level 10 traits is pretty nice, but before then I wouldn't (and don't) worry about it.
Legendary class traits are different and you should work on those as soon as you can.
Woah . huh?
How can I get that? Is there something that tells me more about this or when it happens. My main prob with traits is I never have them on the tracker and forget about them for the most part. More slots would be superb.
How can I get that? Is there something that tells me more about this or when it happens. My main prob with traits is I never have them on the tracker and forget about them for the most part. More slots would be superb.
If you look at the quest window and roll over the active quests/max quests display, the tooltip shows how many deeds are needed for the next questslot. Getting new quest slots is automatic, you get them when completing deeds without any extra fuss.
Playing: AC2
Played: UO, DaoC, Horizons, Ryzom, WAR, LotRO, Eve, VG...
Have you ever even played LOTRO? The traits require grinding on a specific map/region, not globally. And yes, you really do have to go out of your way to accomplish them. In some cases, like in Everswim, the monsters are pretty obscure (in terms of not showing up in quests).
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
I think you are being kind of blind here, many people are goal oriented in life in general. There is nothing wrong with being goal oriented.
If many people actually did what you advocated they would stop playing entirely because they would be completely bored. Some people crave direction (either self-directed or directed by someone/thing else).
Also your last conslusion is not entirely correct as you can easily get to level 60 with only 50% of the vritues even unlocked and none above 7 or so. My 52 warden has 5 virtues unlocked the rest are completely gray. Only one Virtue is level 6 the rest are below that.
Many virtues are tied to zones. You do in fact often need to go back and simply slaughter stuff. In fact it is by far the easiest way to get virtues and racial traits. Enmity of the dead is super easy when you are leve l50 and can go bak to lone lands and 3 shot the tons of undead around Ost Guruth.
The system is inherently grindy. Doesn't matter if you kill 200 trolls in the coruse of playing because you need to kill 200 trolls in Trollshaws specifically for virtues.
Finally some traits are in fact HUGE. For example the Man "strength of morale" is a game changer. For many Players it is the difference for whether or not they can even do certain hard things. To just tell people to mosey around and not care how good their character is, well that is just not the way RPGs work. And some traits are just that effective. Some are nothing more than nice to have or barely noticeable. Some close to worthless.
Yes you do not need to grind out Return to Bree, although I personally do because travel is a pain in the ass in LOTRO. But some traits should be gotten as soon as possible and some of those are so universally known and accepted to be that way that there are regular fellowships getting together simply to knock it out as fast as possible.
If you can get a trait that gives you a full heal to about max health in 30 minutes by joining one of the common hillmen killing groups then you should just grind it out. But you will most likely NOT get it as soon as you could simply by playing. The esteldin quests themselves will not give you enough to get the trait although they will help. And if you just mosey around doing quests you will probably get it at least a couple to a few level later than you could have.
You will almost certainly get most racial traits eventually but it can be 10 levels above the actual level limit before you do if you do not go to some place that has the right mobs exclusively. I just finished the Man +sword damage trait on my Warde at level 51 and i had to go back to Ost Guruth and kill 52 undead to finish it.
That is easily 10 levels difference and that is because I did what you advocated paid absolutely no attention to it and just quested and played how I wanted.
Seriously it just doesn't work. If you do not focus you will not get these things in anywhere close to a timely manner unless your playstyle just happens to place in the right place, like you just happen to love the barrow downs or something. I almost never go there, instead I did some angmar/forochel/MM/Eregion from 40-50 because that is what I like. And thus nothing on that trait.
I mean seriously if there was one more Virtue slot my level 52 warden would not even be able to fill it. I really don't care that much as my Warden kicks some major ass, but it should be pretty clear that not focusing on things is not practical. And in addition if you do care about the efficacy of your character you can be missing out on some seriously good stuff for a signficant span of levels and that is just silly.
So in summation screw virtues that shit is boring and IS IN FACT GRINDY NO MATTER WHAT. But get Strength of Morale. Get it now!!!! Don't wait !!!!
How can I get that? Is there something that tells me more about this or when it happens. My main prob with traits is I never have them on the tracker and forget about them for the most part. More slots would be superb.
If you look at the quest window and roll over the active quests/max quests display, the tooltip shows how many deeds are needed for the next questslot. Getting new quest slots is automatic, you get them when completing deeds without any extra fuss.
Ah crap I didn't know this I thought the slots over 40 were purely by level, did they add that sometime after Moria? Damn i have so many deeds I never bother ed doing. Sigh. One PITA to relieve the other PITA. I hate this kind of game design.
Have you ever even played LOTRO? The traits require grinding on a specific map/region, not globally. And yes, you really do have to go out of your way to accomplish them. In some cases, like in Everswim, the monsters are pretty obscure (in terms of not showing up in quests).
I've played since closed beta.
And though they do require one to be in an area I've usually just had them pop up as "done'. So I suppose my playstyle is to actually be in the area for quite some time or definitely revisit areas. It's middle earth to me, not a thing that, after I reach a certain level, I never have to go back. If I did that then I would be done with the old forest and "that would be that".
the only one that I can remember having to consciously work on was the elite trolls in the dwarf lands in whatever dungeon that was. But I was so high by that time that I could solo them with a bit of challenge.
The thing is, I've come to the conclusion, after reading several threads on this site, that I play these games more like the original mmo's. I do not grab a quest, do it, go back grab another, etc.
I actually play in the areas, I explore, hunt, set challenges. So in time "yes" I just finish them.
Also, given that my main game was Lineage 2 for over four years, in comparison, nothing ever seems like grinding anymore. I just fight, hunt, whatever "grind" in one area, enjoy myself and then log when I'm ready to do something else.
I suppose my perspective is out of whack.
edit: and as I get ready for bed I think I'll add this. Take it for what it's worth. If you play LOTRO as a world, as a part of the battle against Sauron, essentially like one might play morrowind or oblivion then you might not think of all of this as grinding.
If you play it as a set of quests to be turned in or a set of stats that need to be raised then it's going to feel like a chore.
I can't imagine how that would be fun.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo