Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Lord of the Rings Online: Scaling Instances Dev Diary
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Turbine developer Joe Barry has penned the first in a series of developer diaries on the official Lord of the Rings Online site. In this first installment, Barry talks about the skirmish system and how its popularity has influenced developers to take a hard look at scaling instances.
Turbine looked at a variety of factors with regard to bringing skirmish system components into instances: Accessibility, Scaling, and Questing.
Developers have altered the 'skirmish join' panel that players can open. The panel will include a 'classic' tab which allows players to join any replayable instance included in the game.
This includes all instances from Shadows of Angmar through Mines of Moria and Siege of Mirkwood. There are 39 entries in all (there’s a list at the end of the series of articles), ranging from Garth Agarwen, to Carn Dûm, to the Vile Maw, to Sammath Gûl and dozens more. Every 3, 6, and 12-man replayable instance in the game is now accessible through Instance Join.
In the next developer diary, Barry will take on rewards, stat tracking and quality.
Read the entire developer diary here.
Comments
Scaling instances is heavy anti-RPG feature. It's an artificial prolongation of the same content. If you think, level-scaled instances and quest tracker are good features for mmoRPG, then I congratule you for your opinion and recommened you another great "RPG" titles such as Half Life or Far Cry.
REALITY CHECK
After reading this I found a part that sounds horrible:
Meanwhile, Helegrod saw more dramatic changes, becoming a total of four wings. The first three are 45-60 minute 12-man raids, while the final wing, focusing on the dragon, is a 30-45 minute 24-man raid.
So lets say you have a great 12 man raid going on and you complete the first 3 wings, and you wanna do the 4th and final part, but wait you're now forced to find 12 more members to do it!? Thats not very good scaling to me...it should scale down to allow 12 players to finish it, not require more.
Ah well, good thing I don't play it anymore cause ever since MoM, LOTRO has been going steeply down hill and into a not so fun progression mode. It was far better before MoM when crafting actually mattered, now most of the crafts are useless, and it makes no sense why they're even there anymore.
Well seeing as there's only 1 24-man raid in the entire game it's really not much of a problem. Also if the rewards are enticing enough then at least for the first little while it won't be that difficult to find enough players to complete the 24 man raid, hopefully by the time that slows down they will have implemented group size scaling or something of similar effect.
@Thillian: Though I can sort of agree with you that it is a prolongation of the same content, it could be an allowance for people who have never visited that content to actually do it and still have it be a challenge.
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
Quest chains have been that way all along in the game. Go along alone or with a buddy for 3 or so parts then bam, all of a sudden the last leg or two of the chain you need a group. Its hard to find people all on the same leg of the quest and many quests go unfinished because of it. So this isnt surprising, its just more of the same.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Oblivion, you know that RPG game that pretty much scales everything to you, says hi2u. It also says Halo is -----> that way.
Alltern8 Blog | Star Wars Space Combat and The Old Republic | Cryptic Studios - A Pre Post-Mortem | Klingon Preview, STO's Monster Play
Woah, I would never expect anyone to actually bring Oblivion on a table as a proof that RPG use level scale, as I don't think of Oblivion as an RPG. Oblivion has FPS controls, FPS combat, FPS aim, everything scales up to you, instant travel, quest trackers. That's no RPG, that's FPS. And if you still believe it's RPG, then I congratule you again for your genre choice, and recommened you Half Life and Far Cry to further enhance your "RPG" experience.
REALITY CHECK
all of you just love to fight about non sence realy have you played many rpgs they are all about the dang same they all do this its not a big deal theres going to be a milion noobs runing around going whats this whats this hey whats this hey whats that so quit crying saying this sux this isnt going to work this game will take off like crazy once it goese free to play turbines free to play system is very good sytem to for a free to play system so quit your crying
Oblivion, you know that RPG game that pretty much scales everything to you, says hi2u. It also says Halo is -----> that way.
Woah, I would never expect anyone to actually bring Oblivion on a table as a proof that RPG use level scale, as I don't think of Oblivion as an RPG. Oblivion has FPS controls, FPS combat, FPS aim, everything scales up to you, instant travel, quest trackers. That's no RPG, that's FPS. And if you still believe it's RPG, then I congratule you again for your genre choice, and recommened you Half Life and Far Cry to further enhance your "RPG" experience.
Well that makes sense. If, evidently, all you've ever played are Far Cry and Half Life (you seem fixated on these 2 titles for a reason I gather), then it stands to reason you'd really have no idea what an RPG is.
Oblivion/Morrowind are RPGs. Are they RPGs that I like. No. I prefer the Bioware model. But they are still RPGs.
I believe we can henceforth safely discount anything you have to say on the subject. Good day.
Alltern8 Blog | Star Wars Space Combat and The Old Republic | Cryptic Studios - A Pre Post-Mortem | Klingon Preview, STO's Monster Play
It's entertaining to read how you absolutely missed the point.
Oblivion is no RPG just like Half Life nor Far Cry. They are both the same. Same difficult combat all the time, no quest solving, teleporting from chapter to chapter. Everything scales to your power.
Simply said specifically for you. Level scale is no RPG feature. It's a feature to make RPG more FPS-like.
RPG is, was about power differences -> improving your power in compare to the world. If everything scales up or down to you, there's no need to HAVE ANY SORT OF LEVELING SYSTEM.
REALITY CHECK
I can't believe somebody just posted that. It's so wrong on so many levels that it's not even funny. I can only assume this is some sort of attempt at trolling and starting a flame war.
I'm a big ol' fluffy carewolf. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
What happened to Middle Earth Online?
Live in a sandbox Middle Earth.
This just gets more single player casual focused by the day, it's disgusting what this game could have been, but its satisfied with being a WoW clone.
And as someone previously brought up, Oblivion was heavily criticized by almost everyone for its terrible level scaling feature, and that stupid compass.
I thought WoW was unimmersive with its dungeon finder garbage. LotRO is in the same vein. I find a cave, can't go in it because I don't have the quest for it. I'm wandering around the world, can't go left or right because of invisible walls. Just do the same solo quests over and over again.
This is MIDDLE EARTH. The source of almost ALL fantasy, and THIS is the best they can do? A solo grinding game?
Some people like Thillian just do not get what a RPG is. They have lost site of what a true RPG is / was and have come to think of a RPG as nothing more then some sort of kill monster to gain next level type of genre.
A RPG, all the way back to its very roots in PnP, is / was / and still is to this day, about the story. The journey from one point to another and the story that unfolds in that journey. Back in the PnP days of RPGs everything scaled to that of the player. The DM's made the decisions of what powers a monster had / didn't have. Most never attempted to throw an impossible encounter at the player unless the story they where taleing called for it. How many players do you think a DM would keep if all they did was throw impossible encounters at the player and continued to tell the player to go back and grind killing monsters until they reached a higher level. Very little if any at all.. I have never encounted a DM or ever been a DM that would do such a thing to people that played my campagins.
They are attempting to bring the STORY to every player. Allow everyone to take part in the entire story from the start to the end by allowing the dungeons to scale to the player(s) level. This doesn't mean that it will always be a cake walk, but it does mean that every player and group will get a chance to take part in the story. Not a few elite groups and elite players. Whats the point of creating a very interesting story if only 25% of your player base ever gets a chance to experience it?
Why do you think games like World of Warcraft continue to downscale the difficulty on there encounters so that more and more of the player base can experience them? These are RPG games that attempt to tell a story.. Sadly many people have lost sight of that and think of them as nothing more then a level grind from start to end, as if they are trying to prove they are somehow better then other people by being the first there or the strongest at the end. Sadly they tend to miss the entire point and they tend to be the first ones to leave at the end of the day.
To bad they spent so much time so we could rerun more instances, instead of giving us more content at the end game. Repeatable instances is not content.
One things for sure turbine loves repeatables, and uses them all the time.
Oh well, I know a lot of folks asked for this feature, and now they got it. I guess it will become more grind until folks get board with it again. I give it 2 months after it hits live before folks go omg what now.
You're missing one big thing. Death was possible in PNP games, and you usually didn't come back from it. There WERE encounters that you just were NOT meant to beat. Thats how you gauge your characters. If you could tear through the entire world at level 1, and all monsters and evil just adjusted themselves to you, it destroys immersion and the feeling of the world. When I play DnD, I know there are dragons out there who could fart and kill me.
You do know that there is an entire new end-game zone as well yes?
Ok.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
That's a very good point.
I know that in my D&D campaigns I gutted the rule system of everything that slowed down the story.
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
It's only as possible as the DM allows.
To expand upon my D&D statement, I would rarely kill a player's character. Oh, they might get into a jam, might seem dead, etc, but eventually I brought them back unless they decided to do something really stupid.
All the encounters are scaled to a player. Pick up any of the old AD&D modules and they were very "doable" by the levels and player amounts indicated.
Challenge is good and there should be places where a player can get their butt kicked if they are not careful. But I've never been one to punish my players. Why? In the end it was about friends getting together to drink soda, eat pizza, have a few laughs and share a storied encounter. At least for me and my players.
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
You scaled them by not letting them go to a place where something would kill them. You didn't just instantly nerf whatever they encountered. Or sometimes, you present them with characters you KNOW they can't handle and make sure to imply that so they don't go and attack him. Let the players survive for themselves. Its the illusion between game and reality. If you make the players win every time and have nothing bad happen to them, they won't care. When you fear for the life of your character, you're going to get sucked into the game world.
I don't think you're getting how the scaling is working. You can't just walk up to Annuminas at lvl10 and start it on level. Each instance can't be done at a lower level then it was origionally designed for. What you can do is take a level 50 instance like Annu or Helegrod and play it at 65 with 65+ mobs and lvl65 loot albeit through skirmish marks.
The loot is what is pissing most people off since there won't be any epic drops in the instance. Skirmish marks is all that's going to drop and then you'll barter those for lvl65 loot. If they add jewelry it'll be nice since you won't have to run an instance 1000+ times for that ring you need. You'll just need to run the instance 10 times and you can get any piece of jewelry you want.
The lack of anticipation and excitment upon opening a chest is probably the biggest downside to the whole Scalable Instances.
Bring in Group Size Scaling for ALL of the content - if I don't want to have to group with others all the time to enjoy ALL the content then I shouldn't be forced to - nothing is more aggravating then starting to get into the story of a quest chain and then suddenly you are forced to go find some other players to finish it - this has always ticked me off.
DEFINITION OF REALITY: Graphics ok, Sound ok, Gold drops need more work...
Please let us know how the new Mirkwood/Forachel sized zone works out for you. If you add it to Mirkwood you will have about the size xpac players should have had more than a year ago. Too little, too late.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Group sized scaling is one of the stupidest things they've introduced to LotRO. It's the whole reason skirmishes don't feel epic or cool they're just grind fests. I mean seriously you and your loyal soldier are going to take on the fortress of Dol Guldur by yourselves!? Gandalf had to sneak in there and he's more powerful then you could ever hope to be!!
The whole point of an MMORPG is to play with other people that's why it's Massively Multi-Player Online RPG not Massively Single-player Online. Making things easier to solo is what's killing LotRO, fewer and fewer new players have any idea how to play their class in a group setting and wind up struggling with end game raiding. If you're not interested in raiding which you probably aren't since you're so anti-social as to want to be able to do everything solo the that's probably not a problem since you'll never be in a raid.
And they've already made every single epic level fellowship instance soloable thanks too Inspired Greatness, so why are you complaining anyway you already got your way. If they add inspired greatness or scalable group size to the rift or annuminas you will see 80% of the players leave. No one in their right mind wants to do something soloable that's already barely believable when doing it with 12 people.
So quit your whining and make some friends and/or join a kinship, embrace the concept of playing with others and learn the joys of teamwork!
In my case that's half true. The yellow one is true.
However, I would map out a story in a way where there were certain areas where I required them to live. Oh sure, they could die in other areas and there was always a good possibility that in another session or two we could have a quest to resurrect them, possibly creating another questline where they would have to do certain things in order to get their full powers back.
However, if it seemed that a death would ruin my story plans, I would nerf the encounter. They didn't know the encounter was nerfed but they would get down to low hit points, might have weapons broken, etc, they would survive it, smiles on their faces and relief in their eyes feeling that they made it by the skin of their teeth.
But I as DM, in the end, am the "Deus ex Machina".
Only I truly know how many times they should have died and yet were saved by DM "divine intervention".
You see, my players knew that they could die. But my job is to lead them through a story. I don't rely on rolls of dice to tell the whole story, only to help shape the story here and there.
So if it just wouldn't be fun to have them die then something would happen to save them. There might be repercussions, it might open new storylines but in the end they had fun, felt like they were risking their lives and I created a story that they enjoyed.
I'm not a bean counter and don't stick to the rules if they run counter to creating a fun adventure.
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
I'm not gonna get into this whole discussion as to what's right and what's not. I just would like to say, yes it is upsetting for someone like me who's been around since beta for LOTRO having to find people to do quests with (most of the time people tell ya to piss off). Just to get a quest completed, than a couple months later you help a friend or someone who just needs help, and come to find out that what you had problems with during your attempt with 4-5 others is now capable of being done with 2-3 others of the same level of the quest. I've seen a few monsters where the creature I was killing, had a lot more health than I thought was fair, however with people who are able to play their classes and do the job they are built for, it is possible to complete the mission. When something get's downgraded to be easier it's a pain to hear some say "This isn't right, it's too hard!" get a life, most of us veterans had to take on that same creature with more health and stats than what you have to deal with now.
The Skirmish thing is pretty cool, as it allows more options aside from the normal gameplay. whether you decide to grind or not is completely up to the player so please, no more complaints about having to grind. When you play an RPG or MMORPG, what is the one thing your doing, to get to the top? GRINDING. No matter how you think your playing, it's all grinding, from the playing of the basic story line, to completing deeds, quests, or crafts...it's all Grinding. Which I don't mind, when it's fun, but when it gets to the point to where you feel like it's a chore, than it starts to lose it's glitter.
As for loot items, yes it would be nice for the skirmishes to have some really good loot items, inside the instances but have the better ones for the trade-ins, just like rep gear.
The only thing that I really have a problem with in LOTRO is when trying to find a group to run through some instances, but they tell you that you don't have the right armour for it. Most cases (especially to those who don't know how to play their class) this is true. However I have been in a few runs with a couple higher tanks and my toon with lower level armour, outmatched theirs with the same amount of mobs, plus theirs (after they've fallen of course), can I credit my armour for that? no, I knew how to play my class and I set up my legacies and skills in a way that allowed me to play according to the role I chose. Because of problems like this I've had to solo most of my way through the game, until I found a group of players that allowed me to enhance my role abilities to it's utmost potential.
The best way I've found to unlock the potential to a class on any RPG game, is to find another player or class (if offline RPG with NPCs) that compliment your own. Have fun and enjoy the game(s) you play.