MMORPG.com Lord of the Rings Online Correspondent feels that the game's crafting and combat mechanics could use some tweaking and offers his own solutions to the problem.

Gamers have started paying attention more and more to the production of upcoming MMOs and discuss relentlessly on forums about the game's structure, problems and how they see it functioning. As a gaming society, we have earned more and more respect out of the growing collaboration between developers and the public's requests and needs. There are cries though that never get heard, cries which target crafting systems, PvP and PvE game play, computer requirements and many more. LotRO has been, in fact, a mark of such comments due to some missing features some players have expressed. Crafting is too boring and banal; combat becomes rather repetitive, not enough PvP and most of all not enough incentive to keep on playing for more than reaching the cap. In a way, we have to be realistic about what is possible and what forces the use of super computers as was the case with the release of Crysis. The battle we are fighting today is between complexity and computer power, and since it all come down to income, how can a game company produce something original, complex, fresh and most of all reinvented without burning a hole through our pockets?

Read Improving Game Mechanics

I would like to see more done to personal houses and kin houses.  Maybe kinships can have the option of building their own house and also be able to put many more items up for display(my kin house is full of raid trophies and instance trophies but there are soo many we dont have room for).  Another thing i would like to see is being able to attack while on your horse/goat.  And where the hell are our flying eagle mounts!!!   

I'd like to see Lotro get into the real age of most P2P MMOs and actually have a playable evil side. Not the crappy monster thing, but actual evil races which would bring new life into the dying game, bring a new PvP into the game, and also allow it to remain compeititive against games like WoW and WAR where there are 2 sides.

The game is pretty, but you can only fight PvE so much before it gets boring.

I completely disagree with the article. Mainly because to have such a complex "hardcore" combat mechanics as it is suggesting, then killing 1,000,000 boars needs to be taken out of the game, as making it difficult to kill them would kill the current game. On that note, just take out levels altogether. Sorry, no thanks. The combat is already slow as it is, but having to worry about things like trajectory, wind etc. on my hunter is NOT something I would look forward to. I play the game for story, and exploration and the feeling of being able to kill a mob in 2 seconds(although in LOTRO's current form this can still be tweaked to be a bit faster). Not some strange idea of an FPS crossover.

Same goes with the crafting. While I don't do a lot of crafting in MMOs, I do dabble at least a little bit in each and doing it the way the article suggested, having to worry about actual measurements. NO thanks. Maybe the article poster is a hardcore nut, and that's fine I suppose, someone make him an mmo that he can play but leave the majority of the other games geared to the majority of the playerbase which is NOT hardcore.

Even as a non-pvp'er I too would like to see them expand Pvp into a RvR setup.  LotR and LotRO lore already have goblins, orc's and trolls.  With the addtion of a playable man race you could easily have the 4 evil playable races to balance out the game.  Let their starting areas be south of Mordor or where ever else is in a non-interference area and give them quests etc.... to level up with just like the good guys. 

Introduce either Mordor (not lore I know) or some border regions as RvR open Pvp area's with keeps, capture points etc... and have at it.  Since those area's would probably be controlled by the higher levels, you could also open up some Pvp dungeons based on levels a la DoAC so thoses of any level could have a Pvp area to play through where they could expect to only meet other players within 5? levels of themselves.

For combat in general I would love to see some of the options talked about.  There's a single player game called Mount & Blade which does pretty much all he talks about (without the rolling part).  Kind of a thinking man's combat.  If you charge in holding your sword over your head, the NPC will put his shield up too to block the shot.

I do believe though that it's too late to make changes like these to any existing game since the cries of NGE! NGE! NGE! would instantly be heard.  These types of MAJOR changes would be best done from the ground up in a brand new game.

Combat

I completely disagree with the notion of how great it would be if it worked more like a first person game.  The main reason I like to play MMOs is they are some of the few games that are still based on a die roll mechanic.  If I want to play an FPS, then I'll play an FPS.

Crafting

The key word should be 'useful', not 'complex'.

It seems like both of these were written from the perspective of someone that wants a more niche game for themselves.  The more complex it is and the harder it is for people to play it, the more enjoyable it is for that type of person.  It's like the flood of refuges we are starting to get from WoW.  It never ceases to amaze me how quickly they start in the forums and OOC with all the changes they'd like to see, and they all sound 'really' familiar.

Honestly, the PC market is dwindling as it is, and you all have your PS3s and XBoxs and Wiis, do we really need to turn the few nice remaining games we have into WWF Wife Swap Idol Crysis American Prototype Call of Limbaugh VI?

I also have to completely disagree with virtually the entire article.

I do not think FPS style, twitch based combat has any place whatsoever in MMORPGs. Not only are there a number of technical limitations involved, but more importantly an MMORPG is not supposed to be solely about the combat. "Role playing" is about more than hack and slash, even if far too many players have forgotten that fact. Now, combat systems could be improved in a number of ways, better visuals, more complex options etc - personally I would like to see a focus on more complex and involved encounters that took longer and less emphasis on killing 998 mobs, but that is me.

As for PvP - as much as I love it - NOT EVERY GAME HAS TO BE HARDCORE PVP! LotRO is one of the best PvE games out there, if not the best - so what that its pvp system sucks? LotRO has largely and should continue to ignore and marginalize the pvp side of the game because that is NOT why people are playing it. Could it have been done differently, sure - they could have done an RvR style system and it might have been great, but lots of other games are out there or coming out that offer that.

As for crafting, again I totally disagree. LotRO's crafting system is perhaps "weak" when compared to say pre-NGE SWG, but that's about it. It is vastly better than WoW, AoC, WAR and most others. It might benefit from some of the interactive bits done in EQ2, but  I am not sure the elements in EQ2/Vanguard added much beyond annoyance. In LotRO you can craft useful items in nearly every profession all the way to the end game - frequent crafted gear is the best for many purposes at many levels, hard to get much better than that really. Again, in the "perfect" sandbox game, I can see it being done better and there are certainly things that could be improved in LotRO - more recipes, more consumables, more variety etc, but it is pretty good as is.

Lastly, housing  - yep LoTRO housing could use some work, it's a bit dated. But it remains more useful than any other MMO I have played, having a house is a huge convenience increase that I actually use - instead of just sitting there looking pretty.

 BTW How the heck is this an editorial? Could we please sack this guy and get a LotRO correspondent that actually likes the game? Or at least writes about it,  not his nutty ideas of how to redesign the game from the ground up?

Completely agrees with both ericbelser and asfaraslarry! Couldnt have said it better.

While I too think that the author is far off-base, I do have to say that his target areas are quite valid for a look towards improvement.

I love LotRO and have all my "free people" and "monster players" character slots used up and I do feel that all the mentioned areas need improved, but not drastically replaced.

In crafting, simply providing the ability for players to add optional components to strenthen crafted gear to be better than the original recipe such as:

Scholar's Cloak
Requires: 2x bolt of silk cloth, 1x darkened leather guard, 1x darkened leather binding
Optional 1x Dusty Tail to improve critical success chance

Assuming crit succes, you receive:
Fine Scholar's Cloak
light armour
+12 will
+17 power
+23 fate

However if you we had the ability to add a few of the "optional added components" (my thoughts being vendor bought basics such as a different color "rune" that adds a bit of a stat bases on color like yellow rune for additional armour or red rune for melee crit chance etc) and I added 3 yellow runes then I would get an increased armour version which was improved from 214 armour to 245.

In PvMP, as much as I think a lot of folks would love to level up "creeps" the same as "freeps", I don't see it as needed to make the existing pvp into more of a real, albeit optional, part of the game. Simply dedicating more attention and resources could easily turn the PvMP into a serious drawing factor.

Basic areas of PvMP that should be improved:
1. make more use of the "monster play" status which causes adjustment to free people skills to make them a bit more balanced against monster players. Creeps are not simple npcs and should not ever have to suffer being 1-shotted by rks, hunters or any other class. Nor should creeps have to stand still with a completely greyed out hotbar for 20+ seconds while they are killed thanks to insane crowd control. (say it with me: "crowd control is not pvp!")

2. Reduce lag greatly
(provide options for players to disable ALL sparkly graphical crud that hinders performance, as well as basic class skins that can be shown instead of all the fancy armour. Disable the my.lotro.com polling of the game servers or greatly reduce frequency/optimize it so that it doesn't considerably add to lag.)

3. Treat monster players better than 2nd rate.
(give mailbox, auction, bank etc to them to use the same as freeps)

I completely agree with the disagreement posts. Please don't change LOTRO so drastically that it becomes a whole new game. That's not what we want. Instead, try to focus on making our current game of choice for 2-years now into what it could and should be.

Where to start? Try actually updating the UI like you promised over a year ago so that it's at least on par with standard MMO UIs. Right now, it's well below standard and in need of much love.

And as far as crafting...I loathed EQ2 crafting and that's exactly what he's talking about. No thank you.

Sorry but I would love to see some radical changes in LotRo.  I think its the most boring mmo/combat there is.   Its a push button grind,  pushing buttons to choose whats going to happen instead of using skill to make it happen is what every other Old mmo is about.   Obviously they recognize people are leaving to play the new mmo's that offer some thought and challenge.  They mention mechanics almost similar to aoc with the blocking and weak spots determined by a visual during combat.   Shooting distance taking wind and area hit (headshot) in an mmo might not be possible outside of an instance for mmo's.   The combat system they are suggesting seems very realistic and would be great if they could pull it off.   Im sure they also Iisten to the complaints of newer games being ruined by PVP griefing as well.  I understand I am the minority here but whatever.   LoTrO is just too boring to play right now so I do not play it anymore unless something is good on TV to keep my attention while pushing those buttons.   They do have to do something to make the game more attractive to new subscribers or it will not be worth keeping alive as a company/business decision so everyone loses that plays the game.   Hopefully they listen to the majority of people who will make this game possible to survive.   I dont expect them to satisfy me but I do hope they find something to make the game interesting enough to pick up again.   If I didnt pay for the lifetime subscription thinking lotro would be a game to hold my interest past the break even point I wouldnt care at all.   I wish other games offered that,  I would have saved over twice what I paid in scripts.

I can't wait for a decent fantasy MMO that ditches the MUD-based combat of the past ten years worth of games.

@Shreddi, what?  Planetside was dice-rolling, not skill?  That makes no sense, man.

 They do have to do something to make the game more attractive to new subscribers or it will not be worth keeping alive as a company/business decision so everyone loses that plays the game.

Just as a note, this is not something they have to make changes to accomplish - I have not seen a single report that LotRO is losing subscribers, in fact everything I have seen published talks about them having a steady and slowly increasing playerbase. (Which I might add my in game experience supports - replacement rate of new players slightly outpacing the dropouts - for a 2yr old game, that is a very good place to be at.)

Radical change is the death knell of MMOs; I'm not a blinkered fanboi, there is plenty about LotRO that could be improved/tweaked, but radical change would utterly kill the game. Could PvMP be done better, heck yeah - but it is a marginal element of the game and most players simply do not care about it. You want to talk about radical change, it had better be applied to a new game, not one established and 2yrs old.

I would definitely like to see combat become more action oriented and less reliant on standing there in autoattack and clicking hotkeys; dodging, blocking and manual clicking for attacks and such would add a lot to the combat. Ranged combat should have/need ammo with different types of ammo to soice things up a bit. I could never understand why things went from DDO (being non standard type combat with blocking, dodging and ammo and such) to LoTRO with the same ole same ole combat of auto-attack and click hot keys. Having played DDo when it first hit and then moving onto LotRO when it came out, DDO was obviously the model for what would become LoTRO, but things seemed to regress. Housing itself is sort of an afterthought just thrown in there to appease those taht wanted housing, but housing does not do much at all in the game, housing is nothing more than a little more storage and a place to stick trophies with a weekly maitenance fee attached (well maybe thats what housing is supposed to be after all hehe).

 I have played LotRO faithfully for over two years since the beta, but it is starting to feel stale and repetetive to me. It has become the same ole content grind and raid grind for gear which really gets boring after awhile. you grind out for gear which becomes obsolete when the level cap is raised and then nothing to do but grind for new gear, and everybody ends up having the same gear. If turbine doesn't change this gameplay model soon then I fear that LotRO will continue to decline in subscribers and fun. Indeed, some games like Mortal Online and the new Star Wars MMO are really grabbing my attention and if I end up enjoying one of them more than LotRO, then I will be saying so long digital Middle Earth :(

Hopefully with the Rohan expansion there will be a ton of new combat features mostly dealing with mounted combat, if Rohan hits and there is no mounted combat and they don't add in some sort of legendary item system for mounts, or at least give players unique and customizable mount systems (sort of like how you can outfit your mounts in Vanguard), then the Rohan expansion will b e a bust.

I also disagree with a number of the comments on combat.  This is a D&D-esque game in terms of the combat mechanic.  I want to play a D&D-esque MMO.  If I wanted to play an FPS MMO, I would play that instead.  The described changes to hunters would make the game incredibly difficult to play.  Has the writer ever tried shooting a real bow to understand how diificult the proposals would make the game?  And good luck with dodging arrows.

However, mounted combat is something I hope to see in the game at some point.  Rohan expansion anyone?  RvR would also be good in the right context - but the War hasn't reached that stage yet.

Overall, I'm surprised that this person is the LOTRO correspondent.  It sounds like they should be playing some other game.  And I completely disagree that there is not enough incentive to continue playing the game once you reach the level cap.  There's tonnes of stuff to do - if nothing else, get in a good guild and have fun with them.

But, yeah, crafting is a grind :)  In some ways that can be good though because you can set things running to make what you want (for a number of professions at least) and go and do something else for a few minutes.  This is fine for me for the most part but I can relate to some people wanting to get more into crafting than that.

What I meant by Planetside being dice rolling was when I played it the rockets for example would shoot crooked 4 out of 5 times.  The other guns were so inaccurate team mates would have to run in front of others to hit the enemy causing negative points to teamates who accidentally shot them while doing so.   Planetside had such cool large areas to stage a long range battle but every battle ended up so close together it resembled a melee fight.  Maybe they improved the weapons and aiming in ps since I played it.   I was expecting it to play like fps and hit what you aim at even at close range.  I only played it about 6 monts from  comming out and only maxed a couple characters so maybe its changed.   I followed the game years before its release when it was originally going to be set in an escape from NY scenerio,  then they changed that but still had my hopes up.  I  was expecting too much.  Was too used to other FPS and accurate weapons that hit long distance when you aimed and missed when you didnt.  I miss a lot in fps but so what its not my life.   Do you play PS now?   Did they change much in that department? 

Originally posted by ericbelser

 They do have to do something to make the game more attractive to new subscribers or it will not be worth keeping alive as a company/business decision so everyone loses that plays the game.

Just as a note, this is not something they have to make changes to accomplish - I have not seen a single report that LotRO is losing subscribers, in fact everything I have seen published talks about them having a steady and slowly increasing playerbase. (Which I might add my in game experience supports - replacement rate of new players slightly outpacing the dropouts - for a 2yr old game, that is a very good place to be at.)

Radical change is the death knell of MMOs; I'm not a blinkered fanboi, there is plenty about LotRO that could be improved/tweaked, but radical change would utterly kill the game. Could PvMP be done better, heck yeah - but it is a marginal element of the game and most players simply do not care about it. You want to talk about radical change, it had better be applied to a new game, not one established and 2yrs old.

Someone at work was asking me about that very fact can you please let me know where they write up the reports you are talking about so I can forward to him.    How many games did go out of business because the subscribers were not holding it up and changing things could have made the difference?  LotRo better have a lot of long time subscribers,  They offered life time subscriptions so those will be for ever.   They did lower the rate which could be a signal they need to raise money due to their current base is not doing it for them.  The new price has a very short payback so that is kind of scary.  That money spent is gone and no more monthly to rely on, oh, unless they attract new ones.   Anyway,  If you could post were to get the info you read it would be appreciated.   I dont care if they radically change it.   Yes I would like it (only because I play for free now, otherwise The game would be deleted long ago) but like I said I hope they satisfy the majority it takes to keep the game alive.   Thanks.
 

For the post worried about calculating wind resistance or string draw to shoot a bow in this mmo.  Please dont worry,  doubt they are going to make it that difficult.    They really cant in large population games.   Thats why fps games that are twich based aim without that kind of variable cap the number of players per server.   Any slight lag or band effect would blow that effect completely,  they cant make all hunting instance based either.   

Originally posted by Shreddi

What I meant by Planetside being dice rolling was when I played it the rockets for example would shoot crooked 4 out of 5 times.  The other guns were so inaccurate team mates would have to run in front of others to hit the enemy causing negative points to teamates who accidentally shot them while doing so.   Planetside had such cool large areas to stage a long range battle but every battle ended up so close together it resembled a melee fight.  Maybe they improved the weapons and aiming in ps since I played it.   I was expecting it to play like fps and hit what you aim at even at close range.  I only played it about 6 monts from  comming out and only maxed a couple characters so maybe its changed.   I followed the game years before its release when it was originally going to be set in an escape from NY scenerio,  then they changed that but still had my hopes up.  I  was expecting too much.  Was too used to other FPS and accurate weapons that hit long distance when you aimed and missed when you didnt.  I miss a lot in fps but so what its not my life.   Do you play PS now?   Did they change much in that department? 

Ah yeah, I know what you mean. Though, honestly, that was mostly to do with the cone of fire ;) You had to manage it constantly, or you'd get bad results.  It also depended which faction you played, and when it was relative to the release of the game (the best time IMO was early on, before they nerfed most stuff to uselessness).  I stopped playing quite a while ago, but when I did play I played from release for a good year or two, with forays back into every once in a while.  I think I have 3-year service merits on my oldest chars now.

If you played 6mo after it was released, that's probably the issue there.  They heavily nerfed all factions weapons into mediocrity shortly after release, due to balance whining.

Originally posted by teuchy

 The described changes to hunters would make the game incredibly difficult to play.  Has the writer ever tried shooting a real bow to understand how diificult the proposals would make the game?  And good luck with dodging arrows.

However, mounted combat is something I hope to see in the game at some point.  Rohan expansion anyone?  RvR would also be good in the right context - but the War hasn't reached that stage yet.

Now I don't understand the instanced vs open area combat comment someone else made concerning archery and I too think a total RL physic's style would not be fun in anyway (way too much like real work), but the changes described are doable with the combat engine picking up some/most of the slack.

While I can't hit the side of a barn with M&B archery, my 14yr old is a wiz at it and prefers using bows as his weapon of choice, including during mounted combat.   Pretty much the only area's you would need to handle would be aiming and distance (part of aiming) to take into account arrow drop.  He's got it wired down so as to score head shots on targets I can't even see.

For dodging arrow shots that's actually one of the easier items.  #1 would be to add a 'block' feature to shield use and just take the shot on your shield.  #2 is to watch for when they release and then just zig.  I think there may be a basic form of this in LotRO now as I seem to miss NPC's more with my javelin's when they get up and start to run towards me going off on a tanget vice coming straight in.

Mounted combat would be amazing and provide a pretty big money sink as you have to replace your mount.  M&B uses differnet kinds of horses (riding, light and heavy combat etc...) all with they're own stat's and in combat a mount can be lamed or killed.  Lamed can be fixed but killed would cause you to have to purchase another one.

FPS type combat would ruin the feel of the game. Plus how would this work with teh prevelent stat system used in nearly every MMO . No we have TF2, and UT for FPS action. However I would like more strategy in combat, and certainly LOTRO combat is slow and use a bit of spicing up. Games such as Aion are trying minor techniques to add a bit more interactivity and excitement to combat.

I also agree that crafting should be useful, not unique. I enjoy making useful items for myself and kin mates.

The author is way off!