Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Jackdog

MoM needed to stay in beta a while longer.

For one thing server stability has deteriorated. Notice that servers will be restarted on a regular basis now to prevent issues .

From the main site:

The LOTRO game servers will be brought down for rolling server restarts November 25 - November 30 based on the following schedules:

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Eastern (-5 GMT) Daily
Arkenstone, Brandywine, Firefoot, Gladden, Nimrodel, Silverlode

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Eastern (-5 GMT) Daily
Elendilmir, Landroval, Meneldor, Vilya, Windfola

Thanks for your patience!

I have also noticed a much higher percentage of bugged quests and they allowed a couple of major exploits crafting wise to sneak past QA.

Locking players into cookie cutter builds with the trait trees wasn't the best idea they ever had either.

Other wise I love the new classes and Moria and the new area are gorgeous and the weapons system rocks.

All in all it was good but not up to Turbines normal standard of excellence.

 

Cookie cutter trait trees? First off, what trees? OH you must mean the sets, that are nothing like Trees, and are COMPLEATLY OPTIONAL.

 

You keep using those words.  I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

 

They are not completely optional.  Some trait sets cause SIGNIFICANT penalties.  If you were perviously using four traits that fell into Mater of  Nature's fury you will have a virtually useless Blinding Flash.

 

Having one of your key CC abilities neutered is not completely optional.  There is not way you can twist the definition of the terms or the arragnemtn of certain sets to make them fit that definition.

 

In short you are wrong.  And obviously wrong at that.

So, someone forced you to use that trait set. Instead of just using non set traits, or a diffrent set all together?  Ok!

op⋅tion⋅al [op-shuh-nl]
–adjective
1. left to one's choice; not required or mandatory: Formal dress is optional.
2. leaving something to choice.

Think the Op 's heart was in the rightplace, but the message was not well prepared. Does Turbine really need WoW like numbers to be successful, no. They have created 3 games that have gone on for a long time now, and AC 2 WAS a microsoft production so I don't count that cause MS has 0 creditibilty when it comes to mmo's and it took Turbine to show the rest of the industry that.

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad.

But yes the trait sets do force people into cookie cutter molds. It was a good idea on paper but in practice the old ways was better. Right now some of the classes have one effective way to go and two really bad paths and mixing and matching traits will gimp your toon to where it is unplayable. Give me three effective trait lines and I would be happy, and/ or let me mix and match from all 3 and still be a effective player.

Originally posted by tfox2k1

Notice all the trolls coming into the LOTRO forums to scare people away.    Seems AOC/WAR/VANGUARD and all the other scrub MMOs are dying.    So the few fanboys left have to come to LOTRO and WOW forums and try to get some players back.

 

Don't listen to them.   Come to LOTRO, give it three months.   Then experience what you have been missing while wasting time in those other promise everything, deliver little MMOs.

Keep up the great work Turbine, its appreciated in this desert of MMO wastelands.

 

 

 

Yea come play a game with NO replay once you thru everything with one char you have to run thru the same stuff all over again with no way about it. NO Thanks I haveing alt chars to do stuff that my other's have not done.

Originally posted by Jackdog

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad

 

Again, all choices, for you it seems you have to keep up with the joneses. And once again, no one is talking about the game in black and white; no one said it was perfect. But you keep saying we are, so it must be true.

Trait sets are still NOT trees.

Ok one thing I have to ask. And please, OP answer this:

You said in your first post 'Give it three months'

Your asking me to pay 3 months subs BEFORE I enjoy the game?

I really want to get into this game, I do, but if the first three months, which are presumably long enough for a hardcore gamer to reach endgame in, are boring or non-immersive, why should I, ro for that matter anyone play this game?

Just pointing out a flaw in your argument. Please give me reasons to stay those three months.

Originally posted by WeaponX

Yea come play a game with NO replay once you thru everything with one char you have to run thru the same stuff all over again with no way about it. NO Thanks I haveing alt chars to do stuff that my other's have not done.

There are tons of avenues for advancement, and replay ability. There is no way anyone COULD do all the content in this game with one character. I mean, I suppose you could continually do grey things, just because........ if that’s your thing, hay, go for it.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Jackdog

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad

 

Again, all choices, for you it seems you have to keep up with the joneses. And once again, no one is talking about the game in black and white; no one said it was perfect. But you keep saying we are, so it must be true.

Trait sets are still NOT trees.

 

you don't seem to get it dude the only choice is to gimp your character to where he/she is unplayable or follow the one line. That is not much of a choice if you ask me. That is the life of a minstel right now . Trait out in Warrior Skald or live with a orange morale bar, getting killed by mobs two and three levels lower. I could handle it if I traited out as a dedicated healer and could at least survive a battle with a yellow con mob or a pair of whites.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Jackdog

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad

 

Again, all choices, for you it seems you have to keep up with the joneses. And once again, no one is talking about the game in black and white; no one said it was perfect. But you keep saying we are, so it must be true.

Trait sets are still NOT trees.

 

you don't seem to get it dude the only choice is to gimp your character to where he/she is unplayable or follow the one line. That is not much of a choice if you ask me. That is the life of a minstel right now . Trait out in Warrior Skald or live with a orange morale bar, getting killed by mobs two and three levels lower

That’s also based on your opinion and goals. But i am not seeing it with the classes i play. In fact I have been given MORE Varity in customization of my toon than before. I can equip any trait I want, doesn’t matter. I can use a set, or not.

It is your personal opinion and preferences that you use that set, and that not using it "gimps you". You are choosing to be a “cookie cutter”…and that, is also, optional.

Your using your personal gripe (that was a choice BTW) to blanket an entire system.

Tell me, what do you get with that "Orange bar of moral"? becouse it was a choice, and i bet for some people, it would be just what they want.

Originally posted by Pabswikk

Ok one thing I have to ask. And please, OP answer this:

You said in your first post 'Give it three months'

Your asking me to pay 3 months subs BEFORE I enjoy the game?

I really want to get into this game, I do, but if the first three months, which are presumably long enough for a hardcore gamer to reach endgame in, are boring or non-immersive, why should I, ro for that matter anyone play this game?

Just pointing out a flaw in your argument. Please give me reasons to stay those three months.

I will give you a coiupe of reasons

#1 90% plus of the game is outstanding as it stands right now . Even with the warts it is the best PvE game on the market

#2  would be surprised if it takes even a full month to reapir the less than 10% that I think has issues. Turbine has a history of fixing their screwup pretty fast.

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Mrbloodworth

Originally posted by Jackdog

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad

 

Again, all choices, for you it seems you have to keep up with the joneses. And once again, no one is talking about the game in black and white; no one said it was perfect. But you keep saying we are, so it must be true.

Trait sets are still NOT trees.

 

you don't seem to get it dude the only choice is to gimp your character to where he/she is unplayable or follow the one line. That is not much of a choice if you ask me. That is the life of a minstel right now . Trait out in Warrior Skald or live with a orange morale bar, getting killed by mobs two and three levels lower

 

That’s also based on your opinion and goals. But i am not seeing it with the classes i play. In fact I have been given MORE Varity in customization of my toon than before. I can equip any trait I want, doesn’t matter. I can use a set, or not.

 

It is your personal opinion and preferences that you use that set, and that not using it "gimps you". You are choosing to be a “cookie cutter”…and that, is also, optional.

 

 

No dude that is based onthe opinion of at least 7 lvl 50+ minnies inmy kinship and all the dissatisfied minstrels over on the boards. Like I said you can either be a cookie cutter or a failure. that is the choices tright now for a minstrel. Even Turbine has admitted that and we are getting a first batch of fixes inthe first patch, too bad the  fanboys can't seem to realize that a patch would not be needed if Turbine thought all was perfect..

So like you said I am going to follow the crowd and not gimp my toon, because spending all my silver repairing is not fun at all. Too bad the minstrel Dev seems to think there is only one way to play a minnie effectively. I sure liked it a lot better when they gave me some reasonable choices in how I played.

Originally posted by Jackdog

deleted  bah not worth repeating. People here can only think in terms of absolute good or absolute bad.

But yes the trait sets do force people into cookie cutter molds. It was a good idea on paper but in practice the old ways was better. Right now some of the classes have one effective way to go and two really bad paths and mixing and matching traits will gimp your toon to where it is unplayable. Give me three effective trait lines and I would be happy, and/ or let me mix and match from all 3 and still be a effective player.

 

Think your right for certain dps and minstrel classes, but for other roles ,like tanks, there is a lot more flexibility in the system. I defeinitely have more traits I can use, so the combination is pretty overwhelming. I've not looked online for trait help and just with the flow

Originally posted by Jackdog

 

No dude that is based onthe opinion of at least 7 lvl 50+ minnies inmy kinship and all the dissatisfied minstrels over on the boards. Like I said you can either be a cookie cutter or a failure. that is the choices tright now for a minstrel. Even Turbine has admitted that and we are getting a first batch of fixes inthe first patch, too bad the  fanboys can't seem to realize that a patch would not be needed if Turbine thought all was perfect..

So like you said I am going to follow the crowd and not gimp my toon, because spending all my silver repairing is not fun at all. Too bad the minstrel Dev seems to think there is only one way to play a minnie effectively. I sure liked it a lot better when they gave me some reasonable choices in how I played.

Here you go:

I am not good with numbers so I can not really comment on things from that side...HOWEVER -

First two days of Moria Ive found things to not be THAT much different, I did book 1 vol 2 all the way through, completed my first and second legenday quests, got my legendary club to level 10 and reforged, started book 15, WOULD be level 51 but the server went down (1 bub away!) and I have soloed much of it except for my time with Rhianna (thanks Rhi!)

I can still easily take on even cons in multiples

I can and did take on two level 50 Sigs at the same time and won, however it took a bit more time then usual and liberal use of healing.

I can and did solo level 52s with no real problem, just a lil more time and tactics.

One very important thing for us Minstrels! It use to be that you could just spam off ballads however you like, now (and i like this) you should play them in tiered order as often as you can and keep them up as much as you can, this seems to affect combat alot more then it used to. Use the right ballads in the right situation.

All in all, Ive been through ALOT of MMOs and class changes, you only have two options.... adjust or not play the class and above all else dont listen to the whiners...productive criticism is great! But "Well, our class is broken, it SUX now and Im not playing it anymore until they fix it!" is a useless post and not worth your time!

and the following:

Last night while exploring Moria a bit I ran across a named, level 51(52?) Named Elite with about 14,000 health. It took a little longer then usual but I did solo him, my reward was a Mithril Flake (new tier 6 shard)

Point being, Minstrels may not kill AS FAST as we used to but one on one with big mobs/named (our specality) we still do quite well.

Those are my kinship leaders responses to the Minstrel complaints in a thread on our boards.  To give you an idea he is level 56 or 57 now and has only ever played a Minstrel.  No alts at all. 

Originally posted by Cabe2323

Originally posted by Jackdog

 

No dude that is based onthe opinion of at least 7 lvl 50+ minnies inmy kinship and all the dissatisfied minstrels over on the boards. Like I said you can either be a cookie cutter or a failure. that is the choices tright now for a minstrel. Even Turbine has admitted that and we are getting a first batch of fixes inthe first patch, too bad the  fanboys can't seem to realize that a patch would not be needed if Turbine thought all was perfect..

So like you said I am going to follow the crowd and not gimp my toon, because spending all my silver repairing is not fun at all. Too bad the minstrel Dev seems to think there is only one way to play a minnie effectively. I sure liked it a lot better when they gave me some reasonable choices in how I played.

Here you go:

 

I am not good with numbers so I can not really comment on things from that side...HOWEVER -

First two days of Moria Ive found things to not be THAT much different, I did book 1 vol 2 all the way through, completed my first and second legenday quests, got my legendary club to level 10 and reforged, started book 15, WOULD be level 51 but the server went down (1 bub away!) and I have soloed much of it except for my time with Rhianna (thanks Rhi!)

I can still easily take on even cons in multiples

I can and did take on two level 50 Sigs at the same time and won, however it took a bit more time then usual and liberal use of healing.

I can and did solo level 52s with no real problem, just a lil more time and tactics.

One very important thing for us Minstrels! It use to be that you could just spam off ballads however you like, now (and i like this) you should play them in tiered order as often as you can and keep them up as much as you can, this seems to affect combat alot more then it used to. Use the right ballads in the right situation.

All in all, Ive been through ALOT of MMOs and class changes, you only have two options.... adjust or not play the class and above all else dont listen to the whiners...productive criticism is great! But "Well, our class is broken, it SUX now and Im not playing it anymore until they fix it!" is a useless post and not worth your time!

 

and the following:

 

Last night while exploring Moria a bit I ran across a named, level 51(52?) Named Elite with about 14,000 health. It took a little longer then usual but I did solo him, my reward was a Mithril Flake (new tier 6 shard)

Point being, Minstrels may not kill AS FAST as we used to but one on one with big mobs/named (our specality) we still do quite well.

 

 

Those are my kinship leaders responses to the Minstrel complaints in a thread on our boards.  To give you an idea he is level 56 or 57 now and has only ever played a Minstrel.  No alts at all. 

hey you are missing tje point here. I figured out how to make my minnie work too. I soloed a pair of lvl 52's as a 50, and then soloed a 10K shard dropper without dying. The issue is we have three trait lines and right now the warrior skald line is good to go in my opinion but the other two lines need tweaks to where if I decide to go down the heal line I can still solo with some reasonable success. Not taking on a pair of mobs two levels above but at least stand a chance of surviving a battle with one yellow and with luck a orange.

Right now 2 of the lines are pretty much worthlwess because majoring in the Warrior Skald I can stil be a effective healer just not as effective a one as soemone who majors in te other two lines. But if I go buff or heal line then I am very very good at buffing but worthless when attempting to solo. The otehr lines need some DPS love to where they would be exceptional healers or buffers that could still solo fairly well but not from major DPS but instead using the buffs and heals.

There are otehr issues also right now such as healing not scaling upward as you advance and prohibitive costs of  changing traits etc.

The Devs seem to agree even if they are not communicating as we are recieving some love from them in the first patch according to the patch notes.

Anyway back to the OP. Yes it is a good expansion but yes it had it's issues also. They don't do server daily restarts because it is perfect nor do they tweak class skills and traits in the first patch because it was perfect. I have a good deal of faith in Turbine to get things right judging by their past performance. But still the fact remains that the expansion was not perfect by any means.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Anyway back to the OP. Yes it is a good expansion but yes it had it's issues also. They don't do server daily restarts because it is perfect nor do they tweak class skills and traits in the first patch because it was perfect. I have a good deal of faith in Turbine to get things right judging by their past performance. But still the fact remains that the expansion was not perfect by any means.

I remember Wow doing daily restarts as well.  On top of weekly Maintainance.  The reason? 

Oh yeah because they had so many people playing. 

Obviously Turbine is expecting a large amount of people playing during the Holiday and in order to address this they are being proactive and keeping the servers in tip top condition. 

Since Moria launched I haven't had any problems on my server.  My FPS stays around 40+ and my latency stays right around 50ms.  

Instead of applauding Turbine for trying to make sure the game is running as smoothly for everyone as possible you use this as a means to attack them? 

They could wait till the servers crash like Blizzard did.

Originally posted by Jackdog

traits are optional LOL, what game are you guys playing because it sure as hell ain't LoTRO

What he means is that you have many options.

Is every thread in this forum going to be about the Minstel changes now? Cant you make a new thread and keep it there?

Even if Ive heard no complaints from the minstrels in my kin I went to the EU minstrel forums http://community.codemasters.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=688 and expected alot of anger about the changes... to my surprise most Minstrels in Europe seems to think that the class didnt change that much and people actually seem pretty happy. But maybe its just Europeans.

Originally posted by Cabe2323

Originally posted by Jackdog

Anyway back to the OP. Yes it is a good expansion but yes it had it's issues also. They don't do server daily restarts because it is perfect nor do they tweak class skills and traits in the first patch because it was perfect. I have a good deal of faith in Turbine to get things right judging by their past performance. But still the fact remains that the expansion was not perfect by any means.

 

I remember Wow doing daily restarts as well.  On top of weekly Maintainance.  The reason? 

 
 

Instead of applauding Turbine for trying to make sure the game is running as smoothly for everyone as possible you use this as a means to attack them? 

They could wait till the servers crash like Blizzard did.

ROFL you think this is a attack LOL. Saying that I like a lot of the expansion but it had some issues. If you think this is a attack look at some of the posts I did on Dark and Light, Vanguard, and AoC. I just point out the obvious the way I see it . I like this game and still play it 20 hours plus a week but the expansion caused people some problems. The worst I have have is my mainsclass  hosed up and some moderatly annoying lag issues but that is still one more class hosed and more lag issues than I had pre Moria.

Sorry if saying something isn't perfect is considered a ultimate insult and a attack   I guess that just shows the maturity level over here. Here is the truth - the expansion is very good in a lot of ways but Turbines QA has slipped a few notches since it's release. Turbine may be miles ahead of other companies and I want to see it stay there since I have a lifetime sub to this game. I surely don't want it to deteriorate into another SOE or Funcom.

You know something else I could care less what issues WoW or Vanguard or EQII or SWG or any other game has now or has had in the past. The only game I am playing now is Lotro and the only one getting my money is Turbine.  The argument that one game or company sucks less than the rest is a pretty weak argument. That's like saying "yeah my girlfreind has only showers twice a week and farts a lot but she smells better than the one I was dating LOL.

Originally posted by Papadam

Is every thread in this forum going to be about the Minstel changes now? Cant you make a new thread and keep it there?

Even if Ive heard no complaints from the minstrels in my kin I went to the EU minstrel forums http://community.codemasters.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=688 and expected alot of anger about the changes... to my surprise most Minstrels in Europe seems to think that the class didnt change that much and people actually seem pretty happy. But maybe its just Europeans.

well if that is one of the issues that I have and someone says oh but the expansion is perfect then it is perfectly withing scope of the discussion to bring out what I see as not perfect.

Also there are always two side to every story. A few expansions back Turbine made it so that Guardians could not guard when wounded. That upset probably 80 or 90 % of the Guardians but there was the 10% that saw no problems with the changes. Turbine eventually changed it back to where wounds did not affect the Guardians abilities. The big difference is that the Guardian developer was active on the main boards and kept smooting ruffled feathers. On the Minstrel board the Minstrel developer has never made a single post.

here is a search for the Dev posts by the Minstrel Dev

forums.lotro.com/search.php

we have not seen any info in almost a month now and a little info goes a long way.

So back to your question yeah I will continue to raise hell about the Minstrel problems on any thread that claims the expansion is perfect or the game is perfect until I see some evidence to the contrary.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Originally posted by Papadam

Is every thread in this forum going to be about the Minstel changes now? Cant you make a new thread and keep it there?

Even if Ive heard no complaints from the minstrels in my kin I went to the EU minstrel forums http://community.codemasters.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=688 and expected alot of anger about the changes... to my surprise most Minstrels in Europe seems to think that the class didnt change that much and people actually seem pretty happy. But maybe its just Europeans.

well if that is one of the issues that I have and someone says oh but the expansion is perfect then it is perfectly withing scope of the discussion to bring out what I see as not perfect.

Also there are always two side to every story. A few expansions back Turbine made it so that Guardians could not guard when wounded. That upset probably 80 or 90 % of the Guardians but there was the 10% that saw no problems with the changes. Turbine eventually changed it back to where wounds did not affect the Guardians abilities. The big difference is that the Guardian developer was active on the main boards and kept smooting ruffled feathers. On the Minstrel board the Minstrel developer has never made a single post.

here is a search for the Dev posts by the Minstrel Dev

forums.lotro.com/search.php

we have not seen any info in almost a month now and a little info goes a long way.

So back to your question yeah I will continue to raise hell about the Minstrel problems on any thread that claims the expansion is perfect or the game is perfect until I see some evidence to the contrary.

I know the expansion is far from perfect and I have alot of issues with it. I also know that minstrels have some issues. As a long time Captain player I know that it can take a LONG time for Turbine to fix classes ;) Turbine havent become worse, perhaps it just havent affected you untill now.