So THIS is really interesting to me. They are learning from other games and adding clustered instances to Lotro similar to Scarlet Monastery or Sunwell or Naxxrammus or whatever where you have progression between the clusters. They are also planning on gating the raid encounter so you have to complete the progression. If the progression isn't made impossible for mere mortals then I'm fine with this. If it near impossible except for the leet then I'm not so ok with it. I really didn't like the ridiculously hard attunement system (see Naxxrammus again) and I really did like the key system where you get a Bind on Pickup key from defeating the end boss. You could even have a key from the boss of each one to the next so you cannot skip and you'd have to Learn to Play(tm). Hopefully Lotro wont devolve into some gear based power grind like WoW though.On the other hand, I hate to say it, but I'm bored of this system. Its a good system, but I'm bored of it. Whine(tm). :P The task force system of City of Heroes and the mission systems of some games push us to break out of the norm and do new things. I like this. I will definitely be supporting Cryptic in Champions Online for at least a couple months. Especially if its as revolutionary as City of Heroes was when it came out.
Nevertheless, this is a marked improvement from how Lotro's instances worked previously, and the three man instance sound particularly good at adding variety. Well have to see how it all plays out. The Rift was very well made so I have some reason to hope.
3 comments:
I know why they want to do it and I can see how successful the formula has been for Wow but this switch of focus to end game progression worries me. Ultimately I suspect it spells the end of casual kinships (the kind I like).
I have to say I agree with mbp. Not to be crass but, if I wanted to play WoW I'd be playing WoW.
Now I'll admit I've still not made it to the endgame of LOTRO so I'm talking from my gut and not my brain.
But it just rings a lot of the same bells to me: if you don't have item X you'll get kicked out of the raid, but to get item X you need to be in the raid, etc. WoW endgame gets so nasty as people become irrelevant and you get invited or rejected based on gear and being the right specific class with the right specific skills.
I suspect you'll still be able to have casual kinships, since they aren't doing things exactly like WoW. It all depends on the gradation of the advancement curve and the strictness of group makeup and stuff. Those things change from instance to instance, let alone game to game.
Now as far as me liking the system, let me say that if its too strict its gonna be annoying, because it will bar you from grouping anyone who hasn't done A,B,C before D. However if its like Scarlet Monstery I think I will like it since you have to get the key but one person with the key can let the rest through. (That's on the other end of the spectrum, the casual end)
I suspect it will be somewhere in the middle of the road though. All of Lotro's instances (except the hardest annuminas one and the evil barad gularan boss) have been pretty doable so far.
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