Were there any games that have been improved from stat squishes? I know it didn't improve WoW much, it just made it faster to get to the good content instead of, I dunno, making all the content good? It honestly hurt Neverwinter pretty badly. Are there any other examples?
it may be an unpopular opinion, but a big reason why i love LOTRO is because of how long it takes to get anywhere. I have been playing for 90 hours and my hobbit only just now reached level 30. I love that honestly. (granted theres a lot fo me standing around and going AFK but still.)
Yeah I agree with you the first time I tried to go through the region right above rivendale sorry can’t remember what part of middle earth it was called but I started riding my hoarse through and the atmosphere was dreadful like litteraly felt opressing and I never made it through that region but that’s what I love about lotro
@@austincalhoun1752same here, droped the game when going to rivendale, game just felt that i went to a completly different place, it just felt wrong like i was doing something wrong.
I 100% agree. A level squish will just make most of the older zones irrelevant as you will just level past them. I hated when WoW did it and I think it will be worse with LOTRO.
One thing I noticed is they seemed a little more excited this week, i know the River Hobbits are a part of it but it gives me hope that the lag fixes are going to remove a solid chunk of the lag.
You will get disappointed if you are hoping for a lag fix. We hear the fixing lag bullshittery for years and it gets worse and worse in the end. This dude probably got paid to overhype the update.
@@Stratigoz They have been working on it but yes they've not gotten rid of anywhere close to a majority of it. How LOTRO was running for the whole Game in 2021 and into the Fate of Gundabad Expansion was far worse than it is right now.
as ive said before i will always say, a level squish where you reach max level before even reaching moria would probably kill the game at some point since it would totally erase the journey and thats the strongest point of LOTRO
Not necessarily. All raids being at max level would be AMAZING. I want them to be relevant again. That said I see what you mean. Maybe if leveling was slowed CONSIDERABLY? Tough to do, I'd wager.
I played lotro back when it was released till like lvl 10. But I'm back now for the long haul and loving the game. It's amazing they're still updating and adding races/classes to it
Hey, returned to LOTRO last month after being away for over 10 years. I’m loving it! I’m a VIP, setting my landscape difficulty, and have a number of alts. So happy to be back and enjoying Middle Earth!
A level squish in LOTRO would only work if you want to be lvl 10 in Moria and lvl 50 in Mordor. Because the Devs want people to play through the story. If you must get to end game and don't care to play through the story level farming had never been easier.
a level squish doesn't need to reduce how long it takes to level, its more about the feeling of it. When a new player hears the level cap is 140, often that can sound daunting to them and can put them off
The developers are wrong in my opinion: main questline is too long as it is. Could easily be reduced 80 to 90 percent with no loss whatsoever. If something is too long or too difficult to follow (chapters out of order, Mithril points needed for travel sometimes, umpteen fetch quests, hundreds of more or less identical NPCs) you lose track of what the game is about. It's supposed to be about advancing your character so he or she is fit to face the likes of Balrogs and massive armies at the gates of Mordor. (Or wear out and "go West" as some of the original characters did in the books.) PvP, for example, could be redesigned to give a character the option to fight for Sauron or Saruman along the way, too. The PvMP thing is a carry over from the original game that doesn't really work, never has. The lore is rich enough and dense enough to make a much better experience than what we have in this game. Too many quests of the wrong kind, too much travel to little purpose. Probably the technical problems in the game -- lag and out-of-date graphics would have a better chance of being resolved if the game were tighter and put to a better purpose -- smaller can be better.
As someone who has been playing LotRO on and off for a few years, the reason I play is to have this epic journey through huge regions with tons of quests to complete. Even now my main is only level 70 and I have tons of content to go, but this is what I love about the game. Before LotRO I played WoW retail predominantly, and just recently gave it another go for the first time since before Blizz implemented the level squish. Now it takes no time at all to level up through zones and you barely scratch the surface of anything, so I know I won't be returning to it. Really hope this never happens to LotRO.
A level squish, if done, has to be done very carefully. End-game-raid-wanna-plays are noisy, but from playing this game for its entire existence I would assert that the vast majority of LOTRO players are there for the journey, not endgame. And a level squish done wrong could mess up that experience. There is already a way (The Valar Level Boosts) for folks who just want to do end-game to skip over everything and get to end-game instantly, as it is (though I strongly recommend you only do that with your 'extra' characters after having played at least one character all the way through so that you understand what you skipped). Also, I would only use a Valar boost on a character who's class I had played at least to lvl 60 (basically into Moria and the use of Legendary Items or so. Otherwise you'll have an 'endgame level' character with no idea how to play it.
Level Squish isn't happening, majority of Players don't want a Level Squish or think it will hurt LOTRO. There are some Players who do want a Level Squish, hasn't been the first time, but the SSG LOTRO Team are sticking with not doing a Level Squish.
I'm a brand new player in LOTRO, and I think its a really cool game. It's brilliant in some areas, but frustrating in others. I really dig the oldschool MMO feel, the stats and the flavor stuff that makes the world feel alive, but I find myself battling elements of the game that I don't think I should have to. Examples like the map and quest interface, or tiny UI elements that I cant resize. The main story and seeing the world brought to life makes some of the annoying stuff more bearable, but I've had a few moments that were frustrating enough that I closed the game. A solid UI revamp would go a long way, and more controversially rebalancing XP so that I can keep up in levels by just doing the main story and some sightseeing would be awesome. What I really enjoy so far is the main story and doing the exploration deeds for each new area.
Not enough main story to keep up in XP. Doing so would negate 90% of a zone's questing and as such; the development team would stop adding as many quests if most people leveled out of them and moved on to the next area. Enjoy the journey brother, that is what will keep you playing because once you are max level- you need to be invested because if not, there is nothing at max level that will make you so.
Right on the money! Although 1 thing I will say about a level squish is this: unless they copy wow and let you chose parts of the game you wanna play/quest in, a level squish really won't change much in terms of still having to play through the same stuff in the game. A good thought would be to kinda like wow did; make zones scale to your level. As a first time player looking for stories and adventures, you can still play through the normal way, but if the goal is to get to end-game, and it could give pretty much capped virtues and trait points etc whilst letting you skip the zones/areas you don't wanna grind through, that'd be great! For new players AND players wanting to level up alts as well!
That’s a fair point! I’d definitely love level scaling in LOTRO!! I do think that even if the journey were the same length, it’d be an easier “in” for curious players just due to the lack of insanely high level numbers. It might even be better since the level scaling would make each level feel more significant. But great point Viz!! Thanks for the comment! ❤️
@@BrightlifeMMOs for sure! Although I'd recommend people play through the game, I wouldn't mind being able to skip all of Rohan and Gondor, just for the sheer size of it all, on any alts. Also, since the warhorse mechanic is as buggy as it is, it makes for a hard time for some of the quests/deeds there :p but I guess that will improve a bit when the lag itself is being fixed as well, but we'll have to wait'n see! :D
Huge disagree on level scaling. Level scaling makes the feeling of your character becoming more powerful over time as they move across the zones completely diminish.
@@estesthebestes Like all things, level scaling should be 100% optional. Never, ever enforced, never mandatory. AND it should only scale down, not up. If done correctly it would be nothing but a boon to play with your low leveled friends and scale to their levels and do content and dungeons with each other without you overpowering them.
Im really excited for Lotro's future. It seems that the dev's finally start to focus on the things that the game needs the most. Which is lag fix, a really necessary stat squish and maybe a level squish too . The stat squish was extremely necessary. When i saw that some people where running around with 2 million morale i wondered if they had a god complex XD. The lvl squish is imo really necessary for the game. If the Level squish is gonna happen this would really make the game more appealing for newer players. From what i expierienced was that many people are a little overwhelmed when they hear about the size of the game. And these 140 levels seem really daunting for new players. Really nice video. Nice that your making a video on Lotro again. Your videos are alsways making my day. Love the positive vibe you bring into the Lotro community 👍
Sorry for not commenting earlier, but just saw it -- I follow Louey7 more often. Level squish/quicker leveling is critical -- and not just for new players, all of us really. The stats squish would be part of this, of course. Originally, the game had I think 40 levels? Something like that -- I played a Hobbit Minstrel when the game first launched 15 years back. Deleted that character along the way in part because too many characters on board begins to feel hopeless when the advance through levels seems more onerous all the time. The game is bigger, but not to the point of confronting new players/characters with 140 or soon now 150 levels. Anything more than 60 levels has to be really justified, re-thought. The epic questline should be tightened up, and made easier to travel through -- I would be happy if it were reduced 80 to 90%. The game has too many quests, too much filler, too many areas with not much to do but travel through or do fetch quests in. Too many deeds, too many virtue points etc. Get rid of deeds or make them account wide, make crafting significant -- make the auction house relevant -- so much potential here. Get rid of PvMP -- no one plays in my experience. Replace with another type of PvP that can be built around Mordor's use of human and elven traitor forces. Center it in Rohan maybe and make Saruman the guy. Integrate it with instances, large-scale PvP etc. But PvMP has to go, or at least make it deal with a proper competitive experience somewhere else in the game.
Yeah, maybe the mariner could be a dual wielding sword and mini-crossbow type class. Or maybe, instead of a mage like you said, something more similar to a cleric. Could be really cool to have a cleric of Ulmo.
As someone who has been playing lotro for more than 10 years ANY squish feels terrible. FOR ME, having gotten to 140, squishing to 70 and then raising the cap to 75, hitting that 75 for the first time would feel inconsequential. like why would I ever feel good about numbered achievements if I DID once have that achievement but it was taken from me? PLUS as someone who's most important part of the game is leveling and playing along the story, any shortening it would be borderline criminal. level farming is ALREADY easier than it has ever been. and narratively being lower than 100 in Mordor would just feel disgusting. ya gotta feel powerful to walk into Mordor! ;p Though I will admit that I don't do well with change so.... the idea of them changing something so fundemental to the game is terrifying. One of my fears about it is that they don't have the best record of making global changes that don't mess things up. heck tall female dresses/robes are STILL graphically glitched from when they did the LAST player model revamp when Mordor came out six(!) years ago, and the auto placement of plants and rocks and things from the landscape revamps are still borked too, it's not unusual to find crafting nodes under rocks or stuck in trees, even quest items stuck in unreachable places(the most notable being in NW Lothlorian). and theres still places old LI stuff drops... stats and levels are SUCH a huge thing that I just don't trust them to not mess up.
Just love your positivity, I'm also looking for that new stats squish and the new class and race. Very nice approach on the Eärendel type of mariner, more magic and light oriented, because... why not? :D
I just started playing. I naively thought I could travel the world as a level 6 minstrel hobbit. I made my way all the way to Rivendell but the road was treacherous and terrifying 😅Bears 4 times the size of normal and nasty bugs and snakes. When I arrived in Rivendell I was startled by an Elf player who was level 130! I thought perhaps he was a guard coming to kill me because I had arrived where Elrond was. I gave him a kind bow and he bowed in return. I made my way to the Misty Mountains and died up near Helegrod. I was so impressed with the scale of the world. Between the Elf and the world I traveled I realized I was quite a small fellow in a big world after all.
The one thing LOTRO needs more than anything is a good front end designer. The maps looks so awful now, that, if I was to starte the game today, I' wouldn't continue. It's really that bad. Also some other UI stuff is just atrocious.
UI is something they are eventually going to have work on. For Maps, that part is harder for what they can do. They've gone with a Satellite Style Map which in general does seem to help a good amount of Players better than the Older Style "Tolkien Maps". As for myself, I think they need to have Sub-Maps where every Region is broken up into far more highly detailed Maps but I don't think this will be coming anytime soon or ever.
Level que ish and semi evil pirate corsairs ! I know that won’t happen due to lore But .. I’d totally play them! All in all in real talk level squish and lag fix would 92.45% bring me back to playing . :)
I think making the game easier to group with others while not sacrificing "the journey" is the key to keeping people in LOTRO. Make most quest and story content group scalable, like City of Heroes did a thousand years ago. Wanna play with your friend's level 40 runekeeper but your guardian is only level 20? Just make a fellowship and you're now the same level and your quests are as well, and scaled for duo. Same thing with large groups. Those simple solo quests in Bree-land just scaled to six-man content when you joined a group with five others.
hey LOTRO fans. i have a problem. My game on high resolution is crashed. I,ve back to game ang want to play on high resolution and 63bit client and game logged me out and i have a error. Please help....
LOTRO to Consoles is very unlikely. This was an Official Announced Project back in Dec 2020 but has had no meaningful Updates since. There is even evidence to suggest that they might have quietly ended this Project & hope people will forget about it.
I started reading books sometime last year when i never read. Recently i had an itch for an mmo and for some reason i have been having an itch for lord of the rings. So i decided to try lotro again this time reading everything and so far ive been having a blast. I got a sub too.
I'm just going to say it... I'm going to point out the pink elephant in the room.... LOTRO NEEDS A HUGE GRAPHICS OVERHAUL! WE NEED AN UPDATED LOTRO GRAPHICS ENGINE! THIS alone would inject a HUGE amount of life into the game.
Graphics Engine won't change. The Graphics Style has been changing & improving but LOTRO from Start to Finish will almost likely never have the whole Game with the same Graphics Style. There will always be a gap where certain Content looks older compared to Newer Content being added.
I love the fact that competition breathes life, because now you see the company invest. I like the updates but I really hope they do a graphical update, yes graphics don’t make the game great but try selling this game to a newer audience, it’s just not going to stick, would love to play with people near my age for once would be awesome!
2023's Targets for what is happening was already set for 2023 ahead of the Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement. We just learn more info about what is coming for the Major Updates as we get closer to them. Not to say it won't have an effect but up until that Announcement, nobody knew it was going to happen. Graphical Update won't happen. LOTRO won't have a New Graphics Engine or anything. They have been doing various Visual Updates in more recent years but they've barely scratched the surface for this process. Most of the Content with the Newer Visual Style they've been going with has been Brand New Content added to the Game.
@@peppercallahan8286Not assuming. LOTRO had it's 2023 Roadmap announced ahead of the Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement. We also knew various things coming in 2023 because they were announced in 2022. Such as we knew the Upcoming New Race was happening in 2023 and they originally were aiming for Mid-Year. It's now going to be arriving here in August 2023. As for the Graphics, this has been discussed by the SSG LOTRO Team. LOTRO Remaster for example is a confirmed Project but it will not be Large Scale Updates. As soon as they have Features that are ready to be put into the Game, they are going to put them in rather than wait to put several at a time. LOTRO got a New LOTRO Store recently which falls under such. I just have my info from what the Developers are telling us.
For many years LOTRO was my only MMO. I started just before the Moria quest's. As my vision got poorer (I'm 73) I can no longer see well enough to play effectively. It's no fun anymore. I'm sad I really miss it.
Sev mentioned mariners having a "sea shanty" mechanic that they were trying to iron out the issues with. I wonder if they'll be a buffer alongside being DPS?
The main issue with the "Sea Shanty" is they think Players will find it annoying to hear the same things over & over again. We have the Captain, Minstrel, Warden, etc that are constantly shouting & making noise. They also have the Filter System which allows the Individual Player to cut out a Sound they dont want to hear. So they might still go ahead with the Sea Shanty aspect, time will tell.
I'm not sure how I feel about a level squash. I've been playing since prior to free to play with big gaps and I've never gotten to level cap. If they go with a squash I hope they don't squash too much. They can squash the pie and mail delivery quest lines though..
Some Players do want to see a Level Squish in LOTRO, generally there is a larger amount of Players who express they don't want LOTRO to have a Level Squish or it would hurt LOTRO. The SSG LOTRO Team at least at the moment, are sticking with what they are seeing for the Majority of Feedback when it comes to a Level Squish.
It's good to see you're back :) I really hope you continue to do your videos about LOTRO! However, in this case, I cannot agree with the level squish. I would prefer something like giving the possibility to speed the leveling, just for those players that want to be able to play end game content faster. But, let's be honest... LOTRO doesn't have good end game content..they are trying to improve it but it's definitely not Standing Stone's priority. I believe at the moment they should focus on fixing the lag, UI improvements, graphics improvements, old areas revamp (I cannot accept how bad the elves of Eriador look) and then more end game content. I always wanted to see a kind of Arena in LOTRO, in which the players/teams could fight against each other...Umbar would be perfect for that as it is famous for being a pirate city! I think the next couple of years will be extremely important for LOTRO as Amazon game is coming and it will be, for sure, visually amazing and with different dynamics. People will for sure try it out, so if the game is just a little bit good, LOTRO will suffer. They have to invest and bet on the right horse at the moment.. I don't believe bringing new hobbits will do the trick..
I've been playing LOTRO for 12 years, while I am still happy with the game I simply can't get excited about "lag fixes". We've been talking about this for many, many years. We simply have no indication that lag will improve, historically their track record on lag is horrible. HOWEVER they have done some astounding work on PVP, class reworks, river hobbits, new zones.... SSG has done a great job with LOTRO. It's a gem of a game but I simply cant attain the same optimism you have about their talk on lag fixes. Great vid, thumbs up.
UI is something that is coming. 4K, the Resolution and having UI, Text, etc being better suited for it, is a key part of what is coming "Soon". A big thing they've lacked is someone to work on the UI itself but it seems like they are gearing up for this.
I think the River Hobbits in game ended up being Fallohides, not Stoors, right? I was also hoping for Stoors with facial hair! BUT I actually love the River Hobbits in the game, and they're kind of my new obsession. They look GREAT, and I dig the customization and hairstyles!
I think a level squish would require a massive overhaul! Maybe let people start the game in a certain place e.g a Rohan man somewhere in Rohan like the Wold, but they'd have to have a point where all characters re-join the epic quest line together. Don't think the whole Dragonflight 'all mobs are your level' is good. And I swear to God if they change virtues I'd be so mad I grind hours of those per character to make them powerful 😅🙈
Well this was already planned & we knew about the Umbar Expansion and New Class that has turned out to be called the Mariner since 2022. LOTRO is just in an Expansion Year which is always more active. The whole Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement just happened before LOTRO's 2nd Half of 2023 general Roadmap.
Whilst a stat squish is an absolute must (the difference between quest-geared and t2 raid geared players at 140 is far too large), I would also argue a level squish will certainly help. The issue with the game isn't that it has too many levels but too much content and a lvl 50 cap will introduce more options for people to level up and play the game how they want to. But we'll see.
LOL - disagree that the game has 'too much content'! I love right now, leveling one of the classes I'd never played before through a completely different sequence of zones than I'd leveled any other toons through before. And I've been playing this game since it came out. It give one the ability to have a completely different game experience with each character. The massive amount of content in LOTRO is a huge strength of this game.
@@melmartinez7002 Consider a new player joining who wants to play with his friends who are at level cap. A level squish would not stop anyone enjoying all the content and indeed it would allow for greater freedom to experience regions in a different order or indeed miss some out. Instead what we have is a linear progression of 16 years of content with either store-bought boosts or grinding missions as an alternative. Perhaps think about that next time you try and be clever.
Level Squish isn't being considered. Some Players still bring it up but the majority of those who talk about a Level Squish don't want it or think it would hurt LOTRO. There is also the aspect that while X amount of Players want a Level Squish, there is no general consensus to the "HOW" and what LOTRO would look like afterwards.
@@harvain731 Yes how dare people ever consider something in a discussion. For years people like yourself shut down reasonable conversations on the forums by saying "no one wants it". Ever recall the "no one wants raids" from late 2013?
@@michaelreid5307 I didn't shut it down, I am merely stating what Players are stating. The whole "no one wants raids" back in the early 2010s was the people in charge at Turbine & Warner Bros smoking things that mere mortals shouldn't.
10:12 Sorry man, you lost me here for sure. Level squishes have never been a benefit. In WoW, all it did was make people blitz to end-game and burn out. LOTRO does not and SHOULD NOT be an end-game focused MMO. It does not have the setup for it nor, in its entire life, has it been developed as an end-game MMO. If you want LOTRO to degrade, a level squish is the best way to accomplish that. I can guarantee it. Far as the "people" who say they won't play LOTRO because of the trek to end-game; they would NOT last even if it was quick as again LOTRO's end-game is minimal AS IT SHOULD BE. What LOTRO needs to focus on is the journey, housing, cosmetics, PVMP and small group things to do at MAX level as well as landscape content and Delving missions, etc. A raid here and there is nice for sure, but that is a VERY VERY VERY small group of people who actually raid in LOTRO (and has been since the beginning. LOTRO was never a Raiding MMO). If it was, LOTRO would have died long ago.
Stat squish is very appealing. Honestly though this will remain a problem if the continue to increase level caps every xpac. Should have capped it much lower.. maybe 100? New players see lvl 140 as the cap and I'm sure they bounce out quickly
Even for endgame lovers, Lotro is all about the journey. They should just jump in. They would be pleasantly surprised, and it isn't like it costs them actual money.
Depends on what you are looking for. LOTRO does still have Ongoing Performance Issues to be upfront. Various things that might not be for everyone. LOTRO is a STORY driven Game. Story & World Building is it's Bread & Butter, if anyone isn't big on Story, this isn't the Game for them. But it is still the largest LOTR Video Game and is still growing in Year 16. We've seen the One Ring destroyed, Aragorn become King and things have been happening in the Post-Sauron Defeated part of the Lord of the Rings. Game is still trucking on, it's just up to the individual to get on for the ride or not.
The stat squish analogy is forgetting that bonuses from gear and other items upgrades get squished too. In fact mid and low level items, will basically see alot of quest gear get ignored because the difference it provides is so minuscule or just gone, it is no longer worth the time.
I am a little miffed because I started a "traditional" hobbit loremaster to experience landscape difficulty. Now river hobbits and mariner are comming. Why could they not bring this 3 change together. I would have loved to start a river hobbit mariner. But no information what races will be available for mariner.
Pending anything, New Classes will be with Expansions which will be in the Fall of an Expansion Year. They tie the Class to the Expansion as an extra incentive to get it, before the Class & Expansion are available separately about 6 Months after said Expansion was added.
The "LOTRO to Consoles" Project actually was and technically still is happening as they've never Publicly Announced it's over. However since Dec 2020 we've not heard anything meaningful about this Project and even Piranha Games who were supposed to have been brought on to help with this have here in Jan 2023 begun work on their own Singleplayer Game for their own in-house Franchise. The limited info suggests that "LOTRO to Consoles" is a dead project. As for Graphics, LOTRO will never have a New Graphics Engine or New Graphics. They use a Graphics Style but that also will never been in the full game where every bit of Content from Start to Finish looks the same. Newer Content + Visual Updates are putting the Newer Graphics Style they have been using but there is still a lot of LOTRO that is & will be always a bit behind Visually.
Graphics Engine won't change. The Graphics Style has been changing & improving but LOTRO from Start to Finish will almost likely never have the whole Game with the same Graphics Style. There will always be a gap where certain Content looks older compared to Newer Content being added.
It's wait & see. Internally this Class was called "Corsair" before we had the 100% confirmation of the Class name it would be using. We don't know as of June 27th, 2023 what the Class will be in terms of Heavy/Medium/Light Armor, Might/Agility/Will for Stats and what kind of Roles it'll play beyond being a Damage Class.
1:30 EQ and EQ2 do not have this sort of lag problem- nor does Ultima Online or even Dark Age of Camelot. It isn't because LOTRO is an older MMO, it is because their backend is terrible. It ALWAYS has been, since Day 1. The "it is an older MMO" excuse is a flat out deception, even if not intended as such. Their servers are STILL only 32-bit as an example. LOTRO, being a lifetimer and having played since 2007 ... does not the most forthcoming development team. They are far better than they were, used to be almost a year before we'd hear a peep from anyone.
Honestly, if the stat squish is going to be paired with a bit of rebalancing of the monster damage, power usage, crafted gear stats etc. in order to make the game more engaging in terms of having to manage the power resource and the like, then it would do a lot of good towards bringing more enjoyment into it. Personally, I'd also like to be able to "downlevel" my characters back to level 1 so I could experience the full 1-max journey without having to sacrifice all of those Fest mounts, tokens I've accumulated on them while waiting for years to get this grand Landscape difficulty scaling. That is one true treat, although due to the whole stats matter a bit messy, also unfortunate that it can't be used in instances. Is there any hope SSG are going to implement something akin to the Landscape difficulty in full Fellowship instances and raids?
Seems like good updates if they implement them. One thing that always bothered me when I tried to play this game was the clunky feeling though. Maybe the lag updates will fix that? But if it's just FPS optimization then it won't sadly. Just felt really odd to do combat. Maybe the animations just need to be updated? Maybe there is a delay between doing something and it happening? Both? I dunno. Would love to see that fixed and I'd play this game.
It's probably a bit of everything, FPS, Lag, Animations, etc. It's all stuff they are working on and hopefully we'll see improvements in the coming Weeks & Months.
I didn't know there were black and asian hobbits. Did I miss them in the movies? I haven't read the books, were they in the books but not in the movies?
It's more a thing that it's not outright said it was there or not there. The SSG LOTRO Team are just giving the Individual Player the OPTION to use such, it's not being forced on anyone.
First of all, i love this game. I have maxed out my 140 lvl Burglar a i enjoyed my journey like in the WoW back in the days 15 years ago. But lets be honest, instead of new classes/races/zones, developers should really stop doing everything a start to work on lags a UI. Graphics for me are fine cause i use Reshade and he game looks great but maaaaan, the LAGS!
Is this Glamdring and Narsil in the background, hanging on your wall? 😍 Man, i must say, i never played much LotrO. I really love Lotr but the mmo never catches me like other mmos. But i think i will give it another try, cause its been a long time the last time i played it ❤
Well, first time I played this MMO, I was highly ignored when I had to ask questions and the game was well, I moved super slow everywhere I went and I got lost a lot
A stat squish without a level squish would seem kind of meaningless, but the game BADLY needs a level squish, or some way to drastically accelerate leveling for free.
This is the only mmo I truly get fully immersed in. Game sound, full screen, no other distractions at all. No other mmorp has that effect on me. It's an amazing game that way. The lag though....
exactly reaching max level before even reaching moria would be terrible....almost nobody would see the rest of the game and just start spamming dungeons WoW style
stat squish is so important....i fucking hate those huge numbers everywhere, it's dumb.. one of the main reasons I love WoW Classic; they have the numbers just perfect.
I've played over 10.000 hours of LOTRO, the reason i quit was the constant level increase with every expansion, and i just found that never ending level grind to be extrmely boring.
SUBSCRIBE to get pumped with me about a stat squish! ♥
Were there any games that have been improved from stat squishes? I know it didn't improve WoW much, it just made it faster to get to the good content instead of, I dunno, making all the content good? It honestly hurt Neverwinter pretty badly. Are there any other examples?
Nice video! I'm just about to start LOTRO for the first time and I'm pretty excited for it!
it may be an unpopular opinion, but a big reason why i love LOTRO is because of how long it takes to get anywhere. I have been playing for 90 hours and my hobbit only just now reached level 30. I love that honestly. (granted theres a lot fo me standing around and going AFK but still.)
Yeah I agree with you the first time I tried to go through the region right above rivendale sorry can’t remember what part of middle earth it was called but I started riding my hoarse through and the atmosphere was dreadful like litteraly felt opressing and I never made it through that region but that’s what I love about lotro
@@austincalhoun1752same here, droped the game when going to rivendale, game just felt that i went to a completly different place, it just felt wrong like i was doing something wrong.
I'm only 61 after 300 hours and, I'm gonna say, it's a drag
It takes so long to get anywhere because the servers have constant 45+ second lag spikes.
I 100% agree. A level squish will just make most of the older zones irrelevant as you will just level past them. I hated when WoW did it and I think it will be worse with LOTRO.
Just like Gandalf we thought he died, but he came back...
Except this time I’ve been white the whole time… shoot. 😂
💀
One thing I noticed is they seemed a little more excited this week, i know the River Hobbits are a part of it but it gives me hope that the lag fixes are going to remove a solid chunk of the lag.
You will get disappointed if you are hoping for a lag fix. We hear the fixing lag bullshittery for years and it gets worse and worse in the end. This dude probably got paid to overhype the update.
@@Stratigoz They have been working on it but yes they've not gotten rid of anywhere close to a majority of it. How LOTRO was running for the whole Game in 2021 and into the Fate of Gundabad Expansion was far worse than it is right now.
as ive said before i will always say, a level squish where you reach max level before even reaching moria would probably kill the game at some point since it would totally erase the journey and thats the strongest point of LOTRO
Not necessarily. All raids being at max level would be AMAZING. I want them to be relevant again. That said I see what you mean. Maybe if leveling was slowed CONSIDERABLY? Tough to do, I'd wager.
I played lotro back when it was released till like lvl 10.
But I'm back now for the long haul and loving the game.
It's amazing they're still updating and adding races/classes to it
Hey, returned to LOTRO last month after being away for over 10 years. I’m loving it! I’m a VIP, setting my landscape difficulty, and have a number of alts. So happy to be back and enjoying Middle Earth!
missed the lotro content hope to see you back soon
Love your positivity dude, haven't played lotro in a while been smashing diablo, but cbk on a reroll now with this news! Keep up the good work
This is a whole bunch of exciting news and it is great to have a new video from you Bright, ty!
Thanks man! Thanks for watching!!
A level squish in LOTRO would only work if you want to be lvl 10 in Moria and lvl 50 in Mordor. Because the Devs want people to play through the story. If you must get to end game and don't care to play through the story level farming had never been easier.
a level squish doesn't need to reduce how long it takes to level, its more about the feeling of it. When a new player hears the level cap is 140, often that can sound daunting to them and can put them off
The developers are wrong in my opinion: main questline is too long as it is. Could easily be reduced 80 to 90 percent with no loss whatsoever. If something is too long or too difficult to follow (chapters out of order, Mithril points needed for travel sometimes, umpteen fetch quests, hundreds of more or less identical NPCs) you lose track of what the game is about. It's supposed to be about advancing your character so he or she is fit to face the likes of Balrogs and massive armies at the gates of Mordor. (Or wear out and "go West" as some of the original characters did in the books.) PvP, for example, could be redesigned to give a character the option to fight for Sauron or Saruman along the way, too. The PvMP thing is a carry over from the original game that doesn't really work, never has. The lore is rich enough and dense enough to make a much better experience than what we have in this game. Too many quests of the wrong kind, too much travel to little purpose. Probably the technical problems in the game -- lag and out-of-date graphics would have a better chance of being resolved if the game were tighter and put to a better purpose -- smaller can be better.
As someone who has been playing LotRO on and off for a few years, the reason I play is to have this epic journey through huge regions with tons of quests to complete. Even now my main is only level 70 and I have tons of content to go, but this is what I love about the game. Before LotRO I played WoW retail predominantly, and just recently gave it another go for the first time since before Blizz implemented the level squish. Now it takes no time at all to level up through zones and you barely scratch the surface of anything, so I know I won't be returning to it. Really hope this never happens to LotRO.
@@blackthorn5709 Ebbo is that you?
I'm coming back to this game. WOW , this upgrade is CRAZY.
Well, well, well. Look who decided to show up
A level squish, if done, has to be done very carefully. End-game-raid-wanna-plays are noisy, but from playing this game for its entire existence I would assert that the vast majority of LOTRO players are there for the journey, not endgame. And a level squish done wrong could mess up that experience.
There is already a way (The Valar Level Boosts) for folks who just want to do end-game to skip over everything and get to end-game instantly, as it is (though I strongly recommend you only do that with your 'extra' characters after having played at least one character all the way through so that you understand what you skipped).
Also, I would only use a Valar boost on a character who's class I had played at least to lvl 60 (basically into Moria and the use of Legendary Items or so. Otherwise you'll have an 'endgame level' character with no idea how to play it.
Level Squish isn't happening, majority of Players don't want a Level Squish or think it will hurt LOTRO.
There are some Players who do want a Level Squish, hasn't been the first time, but the SSG LOTRO Team are sticking with not doing a Level Squish.
I'm a brand new player in LOTRO, and I think its a really cool game. It's brilliant in some areas, but frustrating in others. I really dig the oldschool MMO feel, the stats and the flavor stuff that makes the world feel alive, but I find myself battling elements of the game that I don't think I should have to. Examples like the map and quest interface, or tiny UI elements that I cant resize. The main story and seeing the world brought to life makes some of the annoying stuff more bearable, but I've had a few moments that were frustrating enough that I closed the game. A solid UI revamp would go a long way, and more controversially rebalancing XP so that I can keep up in levels by just doing the main story and some sightseeing would be awesome. What I really enjoy so far is the main story and doing the exploration deeds for each new area.
Not enough main story to keep up in XP. Doing so would negate 90% of a zone's questing and as such; the development team would stop adding as many quests if most people leveled out of them and moved on to the next area. Enjoy the journey brother, that is what will keep you playing because once you are max level- you need to be invested because if not, there is nothing at max level that will make you so.
Having a better (resizable) mini-map would be a huge improvement.
@@melmartinez7002 UI Work is on the horizon, so maybe this will be among that. They haven't fully said what they will or won't do for such.
Right on the money! Although 1 thing I will say about a level squish is this: unless they copy wow and let you chose parts of the game you wanna play/quest in, a level squish really won't change much in terms of still having to play through the same stuff in the game. A good thought would be to kinda like wow did; make zones scale to your level. As a first time player looking for stories and adventures, you can still play through the normal way, but if the goal is to get to end-game, and it could give pretty much capped virtues and trait points etc whilst letting you skip the zones/areas you don't wanna grind through, that'd be great! For new players AND players wanting to level up alts as well!
That’s a fair point! I’d definitely love level scaling in LOTRO!!
I do think that even if the journey were the same length, it’d be an easier “in” for curious players just due to the lack of insanely high level numbers. It might even be better since the level scaling would make each level feel more significant.
But great point Viz!! Thanks for the comment! ❤️
@@BrightlifeMMOs for sure! Although I'd recommend people play through the game, I wouldn't mind being able to skip all of Rohan and Gondor, just for the sheer size of it all, on any alts. Also, since the warhorse mechanic is as buggy as it is, it makes for a hard time for some of the quests/deeds there :p but I guess that will improve a bit when the lag itself is being fixed as well, but we'll have to wait'n see! :D
Huge disagree on level scaling. Level scaling makes the feeling of your character becoming more powerful over time as they move across the zones completely diminish.
@@estesthebestes Like all things, level scaling should be 100% optional. Never, ever enforced, never mandatory. AND it should only scale down, not up. If done correctly it would be nothing but a boon to play with your low leveled friends and scale to their levels and do content and dungeons with each other without you overpowering them.
Im really excited for Lotro's future. It seems that the dev's finally start to focus on the things that the game needs the most. Which is lag fix, a really necessary stat squish and maybe a level squish too . The stat squish was extremely necessary. When i saw that some people where running around with 2 million morale i wondered if they had a god complex XD. The lvl squish is imo really necessary for the game. If the Level squish is gonna happen this would really make the game more appealing for newer players. From what i expierienced was that many people are a little overwhelmed when they hear about the size of the game. And these 140 levels seem really daunting for new players. Really nice video. Nice that your making a video on Lotro again. Your videos are alsways making my day. Love the positive vibe you bring into the Lotro community 👍
Sorry for not commenting earlier, but just saw it -- I follow Louey7 more often. Level squish/quicker leveling is critical -- and not just for new players, all of us really. The stats squish would be part of this, of course. Originally, the game had I think 40 levels? Something like that -- I played a Hobbit Minstrel when the game first launched 15 years back. Deleted that character along the way in part because too many characters on board begins to feel hopeless when the advance through levels seems more onerous all the time. The game is bigger, but not to the point of confronting new players/characters with 140 or soon now 150 levels. Anything more than 60 levels has to be really justified, re-thought. The epic questline should be tightened up, and made easier to travel through -- I would be happy if it were reduced 80 to 90%. The game has too many quests, too much filler, too many areas with not much to do but travel through or do fetch quests in. Too many deeds, too many virtue points etc. Get rid of deeds or make them account wide, make crafting significant -- make the auction house relevant -- so much potential here. Get rid of PvMP -- no one plays in my experience. Replace with another type of PvP that can be built around Mordor's use of human and elven traitor forces. Center it in Rohan maybe and make Saruman the guy. Integrate it with instances, large-scale PvP etc. But PvMP has to go, or at least make it deal with a proper competitive experience somewhere else in the game.
Love ya man. Great video. Best video game ever.
Always enjoy your videos, so exciting news! YAY! ♥
Keep going Bright! You always bright positive vibes!
Yeah, maybe the mariner could be a dual wielding sword and mini-crossbow type class. Or maybe, instead of a mage like you said, something more similar to a cleric. Could be really cool to have a cleric of Ulmo.
Seems I'm starting my LOTRO journey at just the right time!
It’s a great time to start!!
I only started playing LOTRO the other day and I'm perplexed that i've never played it before. Thoroughly enjoying it.
lol have to love the Yangtze and Zambezi river hobbits!
I really agree with you about the stat squish, numbers were getting too big.
Personally this game need a graphical and UI Update
I'm definitely going to boot it up when I get home tonight.
How does one find a kingship in brandywine?
Great vid
As someone who has been playing lotro for more than 10 years ANY squish feels terrible. FOR ME, having gotten to 140, squishing to 70 and then raising the cap to 75, hitting that 75 for the first time would feel inconsequential. like why would I ever feel good about numbered achievements if I DID once have that achievement but it was taken from me?
PLUS as someone who's most important part of the game is leveling and playing along the story, any shortening it would be borderline criminal. level farming is ALREADY easier than it has ever been. and narratively being lower than 100 in Mordor would just feel disgusting. ya gotta feel powerful to walk into Mordor! ;p
Though I will admit that I don't do well with change so.... the idea of them changing something so fundemental to the game is terrifying.
One of my fears about it is that they don't have the best record of making global changes that don't mess things up. heck tall female dresses/robes are STILL graphically glitched from when they did the LAST player model revamp when Mordor came out six(!) years ago, and the auto placement of plants and rocks and things from the landscape revamps are still borked too, it's not unusual to find crafting nodes under rocks or stuck in trees, even quest items stuck in unreachable places(the most notable being in NW Lothlorian). and theres still places old LI stuff drops... stats and levels are SUCH a huge thing that I just don't trust them to not mess up.
if they fixed that horrible UI I might consider playing this game again.
Just love your positivity, I'm also looking for that new stats squish and the new class and race. Very nice approach on the Eärendel type of mariner, more magic and light oriented, because... why not? :D
Is there a release date for this update ?
wasnt there also a mention of 4k support coming sometime soon as well, no?
That is a key goal once they have more Resources available.
Is the dragon fixed yet? I haven't checked back in literally forever.
Hey, I'm just getting into lotro for the first time
What server do you play on and or recommend? I'm us east
I just started playing. I naively thought I could travel the world as a level 6 minstrel hobbit. I made my way all the way to Rivendell but the road was treacherous and terrifying 😅Bears 4 times the size of normal and nasty bugs and snakes. When I arrived in Rivendell I was startled by an Elf player who was level 130! I thought perhaps he was a guard coming to kill me because I had arrived where Elrond was. I gave him a kind bow and he bowed in return.
I made my way to the Misty Mountains and died up near Helegrod. I was so impressed with the scale of the world. Between the Elf and the world I traveled I realized I was quite a small fellow in a big world after all.
The one thing LOTRO needs more than anything is a good front end designer. The maps looks so awful now, that, if I was to starte the game today, I' wouldn't continue. It's really that bad. Also some other UI stuff is just atrocious.
UI is something they are eventually going to have work on.
For Maps, that part is harder for what they can do. They've gone with a Satellite Style Map which in general does seem to help a good amount of Players better than the Older Style "Tolkien Maps". As for myself, I think they need to have Sub-Maps where every Region is broken up into far more highly detailed Maps but I don't think this will be coming anytime soon or ever.
Level que ish and semi evil pirate corsairs ! I know that won’t happen due to lore But .. I’d totally play them! All in all in real talk level squish and lag fix would 92.45% bring me back to playing . :)
just started on the game, made an account in 2010 but never really played. loving the game rn!
I think making the game easier to group with others while not sacrificing "the journey" is the key to keeping people in LOTRO. Make most quest and story content group scalable, like City of Heroes did a thousand years ago. Wanna play with your friend's level 40 runekeeper but your guardian is only level 20? Just make a fellowship and you're now the same level and your quests are as well, and scaled for duo. Same thing with large groups. Those simple solo quests in Bree-land just scaled to six-man content when you joined a group with five others.
hey LOTRO fans. i have a problem. My game on high resolution is crashed.
I,ve back to game ang want to play on high resolution and 63bit client and game logged me out and i have a error. Please help....
just started playing a few days ago. This games gives me an amazing and immersive experience. Anyone new in arkenstone?
I’m on Arkenstone! Love it there… welcome to LOTRO!
I would really like a console release
LOTRO to Consoles is very unlikely. This was an Official Announced Project back in Dec 2020 but has had no meaningful Updates since. There is even evidence to suggest that they might have quietly ended this Project & hope people will forget about it.
I started reading books sometime last year when i never read. Recently i had an itch for an mmo and for some reason i have been having an itch for lord of the rings. So i decided to try lotro again this time reading everything and so far ive been having a blast. I got a sub too.
I'm just going to say it... I'm going to point out the pink elephant in the room.... LOTRO NEEDS A HUGE GRAPHICS OVERHAUL! WE NEED AN UPDATED LOTRO GRAPHICS ENGINE! THIS alone would inject a HUGE amount of life into the game.
Graphics Engine won't change. The Graphics Style has been changing & improving but LOTRO from Start to Finish will almost likely never have the whole Game with the same Graphics Style.
There will always be a gap where certain Content looks older compared to Newer Content being added.
I love the fact that competition breathes life, because now you see the company invest. I like the updates but I really hope they do a graphical update, yes graphics don’t make the game great but try selling this game to a newer audience, it’s just not going to stick, would love to play with people near my age for once would be awesome!
2023's Targets for what is happening was already set for 2023 ahead of the Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement. We just learn more info about what is coming for the Major Updates as we get closer to them. Not to say it won't have an effect but up until that Announcement, nobody knew it was going to happen.
Graphical Update won't happen. LOTRO won't have a New Graphics Engine or anything. They have been doing various Visual Updates in more recent years but they've barely scratched the surface for this process. Most of the Content with the Newer Visual Style they've been going with has been Brand New Content added to the Game.
@@harvain731 Oh, I didn't know you had indepth insight into the inner core development of Lotro! Golly gee!
Don't assume like it's facts.
🙄
@@peppercallahan8286Not assuming. LOTRO had it's 2023 Roadmap announced ahead of the Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement. We also knew various things coming in 2023 because they were announced in 2022. Such as we knew the Upcoming New Race was happening in 2023 and they originally were aiming for Mid-Year. It's now going to be arriving here in August 2023.
As for the Graphics, this has been discussed by the SSG LOTRO Team. LOTRO Remaster for example is a confirmed Project but it will not be Large Scale Updates. As soon as they have Features that are ready to be put into the Game, they are going to put them in rather than wait to put several at a time. LOTRO got a New LOTRO Store recently which falls under such.
I just have my info from what the Developers are telling us.
Will they update the map?
I missed you man where have you been? lol
Why are you looking at Female River Hobbits looking for facial hair? I thought beards on the ladies was more a dwarf thing
I'm really impressed by your enthusiasm and passion.
every year lotro change all, but never change anything hahahahaha
For many years LOTRO was my only MMO. I started just before the Moria quest's. As my vision got poorer (I'm 73) I can no longer see well enough to play effectively. It's no fun anymore. I'm sad I really miss it.
May Jesus bless you
Here’s to hopin that we get boats along with the River hobbits and mariners
How is LOTRO Population when i played it a few years ago. It was hard to find groups for the group content.
Sev mentioned mariners having a "sea shanty" mechanic that they were trying to iron out the issues with. I wonder if they'll be a buffer alongside being DPS?
The main issue with the "Sea Shanty" is they think Players will find it annoying to hear the same things over & over again. We have the Captain, Minstrel, Warden, etc that are constantly shouting & making noise. They also have the Filter System which allows the Individual Player to cut out a Sound they dont want to hear.
So they might still go ahead with the Sea Shanty aspect, time will tell.
I'm not sure how I feel about a level squash. I've been playing since prior to free to play with big gaps and I've never gotten to level cap. If they go with a squash I hope they don't squash too much. They can squash the pie and mail delivery quest lines though..
stats..not levels
@@robertcarlyle4946 he mentioned he would also like levels like WoW did.
Some Players do want to see a Level Squish in LOTRO, generally there is a larger amount of Players who express they don't want LOTRO to have a Level Squish or it would hurt LOTRO.
The SSG LOTRO Team at least at the moment, are sticking with what they are seeing for the Majority of Feedback when it comes to a Level Squish.
It's good to see you're back :) I really hope you continue to do your videos about LOTRO!
However, in this case, I cannot agree with the level squish. I would prefer something like giving the possibility to speed the leveling, just for those players that want to be able to play end game content faster. But, let's be honest... LOTRO doesn't have good end game content..they are trying to improve it but it's definitely not Standing Stone's priority. I believe at the moment they should focus on fixing the lag, UI improvements, graphics improvements, old areas revamp (I cannot accept how bad the elves of Eriador look) and then more end game content. I always wanted to see a kind of Arena in LOTRO, in which the players/teams could fight against each other...Umbar would be perfect for that as it is famous for being a pirate city!
I think the next couple of years will be extremely important for LOTRO as Amazon game is coming and it will be, for sure, visually amazing and with different dynamics. People will for sure try it out, so if the game is just a little bit good, LOTRO will suffer. They have to invest and bet on the right horse at the moment.. I don't believe bringing new hobbits will do the trick..
Level Squish its a hard call. Ido everything in each zone and im always out leveled soo fast. The EXP Stopper turtle stone pocket item helps but.
I've been playing LOTRO for 12 years, while I am still happy with the game I simply can't get excited about "lag fixes". We've been talking about this for many, many years. We simply have no indication that lag will improve, historically their track record on lag is horrible. HOWEVER they have done some astounding work on PVP, class reworks, river hobbits, new zones.... SSG has done a great job with LOTRO. It's a gem of a game but I simply cant attain the same optimism you have about their talk on lag fixes. Great vid, thumbs up.
Thanks for video dude, good to see ya! -RedJay81
Still no UI update
UI is something that is coming. 4K, the Resolution and having UI, Text, etc being better suited for it, is a key part of what is coming "Soon". A big thing they've lacked is someone to work on the UI itself but it seems like they are gearing up for this.
I think the River Hobbits in game ended up being Fallohides, not Stoors, right? I was also hoping for Stoors with facial hair! BUT I actually love the River Hobbits in the game, and they're kind of my new obsession. They look GREAT, and I dig the customization and hairstyles!
I think a level squish would require a massive overhaul! Maybe let people start the game in a certain place e.g a Rohan man somewhere in Rohan like the Wold, but they'd have to have a point where all characters re-join the epic quest line together. Don't think the whole Dragonflight 'all mobs are your level' is good. And I swear to God if they change virtues I'd be so mad I grind hours of those per character to make them powerful 😅🙈
I saw the thumbnail and thought lotro is what aussies call the lottery not gonna lie.
Seems like since the announcement of new lotr game, SSG shifted in higher gear, which is nice!
Well this was already planned & we knew about the Umbar Expansion and New Class that has turned out to be called the Mariner since 2022.
LOTRO is just in an Expansion Year which is always more active. The whole Amazon LOTR MMO Announcement just happened before LOTRO's 2nd Half of 2023 general Roadmap.
Whilst a stat squish is an absolute must (the difference between quest-geared and t2 raid geared players at 140 is far too large), I would also argue a level squish will certainly help. The issue with the game isn't that it has too many levels but too much content and a lvl 50 cap will introduce more options for people to level up and play the game how they want to. But we'll see.
LOL - disagree that the game has 'too much content'! I love right now, leveling one of the classes I'd never played before through a completely different sequence of zones than I'd leveled any other toons through before. And I've been playing this game since it came out. It give one the ability to have a completely different game experience with each character. The massive amount of content in LOTRO is a huge strength of this game.
@@melmartinez7002 Consider a new player joining who wants to play with his friends who are at level cap. A level squish would not stop anyone enjoying all the content and indeed it would allow for greater freedom to experience regions in a different order or indeed miss some out. Instead what we have is a linear progression of 16 years of content with either store-bought boosts or grinding missions as an alternative.
Perhaps think about that next time you try and be clever.
Level Squish isn't being considered. Some Players still bring it up but the majority of those who talk about a Level Squish don't want it or think it would hurt LOTRO.
There is also the aspect that while X amount of Players want a Level Squish, there is no general consensus to the "HOW" and what LOTRO would look like afterwards.
@@harvain731 Yes how dare people ever consider something in a discussion. For years people like yourself shut down reasonable conversations on the forums by saying "no one wants it". Ever recall the "no one wants raids" from late 2013?
@@michaelreid5307 I didn't shut it down, I am merely stating what Players are stating.
The whole "no one wants raids" back in the early 2010s was the people in charge at Turbine & Warner Bros smoking things that mere mortals shouldn't.
10:12 Sorry man, you lost me here for sure. Level squishes have never been a benefit. In WoW, all it did was make people blitz to end-game and burn out. LOTRO does not and SHOULD NOT be an end-game focused MMO. It does not have the setup for it nor, in its entire life, has it been developed as an end-game MMO. If you want LOTRO to degrade, a level squish is the best way to accomplish that. I can guarantee it. Far as the "people" who say they won't play LOTRO because of the trek to end-game; they would NOT last even if it was quick as again LOTRO's end-game is minimal AS IT SHOULD BE. What LOTRO needs to focus on is the journey, housing, cosmetics, PVMP and small group things to do at MAX level as well as landscape content and Delving missions, etc. A raid here and there is nice for sure, but that is a VERY VERY VERY small group of people who actually raid in LOTRO (and has been since the beginning. LOTRO was never a Raiding MMO). If it was, LOTRO would have died long ago.
Stat squish is very appealing. Honestly though this will remain a problem if the continue to increase level caps every xpac. Should have capped it much lower.. maybe 100? New players see lvl 140 as the cap and I'm sure they bounce out quickly
Even for endgame lovers, Lotro is all about the journey. They should just jump in. They would be pleasantly surprised, and it isn't like it costs them actual money.
Graphics update when?
i used to play it ALOT before it went f2p. is it even worth it ever since? heard tons n tons of bad feedback after the f2p switch
Depends on what you are looking for. LOTRO does still have Ongoing Performance Issues to be upfront. Various things that might not be for everyone. LOTRO is a STORY driven Game. Story & World Building is it's Bread & Butter, if anyone isn't big on Story, this isn't the Game for them.
But it is still the largest LOTR Video Game and is still growing in Year 16. We've seen the One Ring destroyed, Aragorn become King and things have been happening in the Post-Sauron Defeated part of the Lord of the Rings. Game is still trucking on, it's just up to the individual to get on for the ride or not.
The stat squish analogy is forgetting that bonuses from gear and other items upgrades get squished too. In fact mid and low level items, will basically see alot of quest gear get ignored because the difference it provides is so minuscule or just gone, it is no longer worth the time.
I am a little miffed because I started a "traditional" hobbit loremaster to experience landscape difficulty. Now river hobbits and mariner are comming. Why could they not bring this 3 change together. I would have loved to start a river hobbit mariner. But no information what races will be available for mariner.
Pending anything, New Classes will be with Expansions which will be in the Fall of an Expansion Year. They tie the Class to the Expansion as an extra incentive to get it, before the Class & Expansion are available separately about 6 Months after said Expansion was added.
I think they need to aim for bringing it to console, and a graphic update would bring this game into the exposure it needs
The "LOTRO to Consoles" Project actually was and technically still is happening as they've never Publicly Announced it's over. However since Dec 2020 we've not heard anything meaningful about this Project and even Piranha Games who were supposed to have been brought on to help with this have here in Jan 2023 begun work on their own Singleplayer Game for their own in-house Franchise. The limited info suggests that "LOTRO to Consoles" is a dead project.
As for Graphics, LOTRO will never have a New Graphics Engine or New Graphics. They use a Graphics Style but that also will never been in the full game where every bit of Content from Start to Finish looks the same. Newer Content + Visual Updates are putting the Newer Graphics Style they have been using but there is still a lot of LOTRO that is & will be always a bit behind Visually.
Stat squish has to apply to both players and NPCs, for balance sake.
That is what will happen. LOTRO had a Stat Adjustment years ago and this is what occurred. Everything had their Stats adjusted, Players & NPCs.
Servers are in the US? Since when EU servers got removed? There were plenty in the past.
I wzs hoping for GRAPHIC OVERHAUL...
Graphics Engine won't change. The Graphics Style has been changing & improving but LOTRO from Start to Finish will almost likely never have the whole Game with the same Graphics Style.
There will always be a gap where certain Content looks older compared to Newer Content being added.
just fix the lag and update the graphics. job done
Might be interested in coming back, depending.
Still, unless i missed it, sadly, there's no way for me to play it, because it has no conversion to my country currency :(
Mariner sounds like it's inspired by the Numenoreans.
It's wait & see. Internally this Class was called "Corsair" before we had the 100% confirmation of the Class name it would be using. We don't know as of June 27th, 2023 what the Class will be in terms of Heavy/Medium/Light Armor, Might/Agility/Will for Stats and what kind of Roles it'll play beyond being a Damage Class.
1:30 EQ and EQ2 do not have this sort of lag problem- nor does Ultima Online or even Dark Age of Camelot. It isn't because LOTRO is an older MMO, it is because their backend is terrible. It ALWAYS has been, since Day 1. The "it is an older MMO" excuse is a flat out deception, even if not intended as such. Their servers are STILL only 32-bit as an example. LOTRO, being a lifetimer and having played since 2007 ... does not the most forthcoming development team. They are far better than they were, used to be almost a year before we'd hear a peep from anyone.
Honestly, if the stat squish is going to be paired with a bit of rebalancing of the monster damage, power usage, crafted gear stats etc. in order to make the game more engaging in terms of having to manage the power resource and the like, then it would do a lot of good towards bringing more enjoyment into it. Personally, I'd also like to be able to "downlevel" my characters back to level 1 so I could experience the full 1-max journey without having to sacrifice all of those Fest mounts, tokens I've accumulated on them while waiting for years to get this grand Landscape difficulty scaling. That is one true treat, although due to the whole stats matter a bit messy, also unfortunate that it can't be used in instances.
Is there any hope SSG are going to implement something akin to the Landscape difficulty in full Fellowship instances and raids?
Seems like good updates if they implement them. One thing that always bothered me when I tried to play this game was the clunky feeling though. Maybe the lag updates will fix that? But if it's just FPS optimization then it won't sadly. Just felt really odd to do combat. Maybe the animations just need to be updated? Maybe there is a delay between doing something and it happening? Both? I dunno. Would love to see that fixed and I'd play this game.
It's probably a bit of everything, FPS, Lag, Animations, etc. It's all stuff they are working on and hopefully we'll see improvements in the coming Weeks & Months.
I didn't know there were black and asian hobbits. Did I miss them in the movies? I haven't read the books, were they in the books but not in the movies?
It's more a thing that it's not outright said it was there or not there. The SSG LOTRO Team are just giving the Individual Player the OPTION to use such, it's not being forced on anyone.
First of all, i love this game. I have maxed out my 140 lvl Burglar a i enjoyed my journey like in the WoW back in the days 15 years ago. But lets be honest, instead of new classes/races/zones, developers should really stop doing everything a start to work on lags a UI. Graphics for me are fine cause i use Reshade and he game looks great but maaaaan, the LAGS!
Is this Glamdring and Narsil in the background, hanging on your wall? 😍
Man, i must say, i never played much LotrO. I really love Lotr but the mmo never catches me like other mmos. But i think i will give it another try, cause its been a long time the last time i played it ❤
I love lotro, my issue rn is the maps, they REALLY have to update the game maps
Stat squish? Give me also a level squish and a new UI and I'm in.
Well, first time I played this MMO, I was highly ignored when I had to ask questions and the game was well, I moved super slow everywhere I went and I got lost a lot
LET'S GOOO!
Hope river hobbits come with stuble options or beard
A stat squish without a level squish would seem kind of meaningless, but the game BADLY needs a level squish, or some way to drastically accelerate leveling for free.
maybe they can change the updater, the client, so i dont get stuck at 55% and maybe I can play this game one of these years.
This is the only mmo I truly get fully immersed in. Game sound, full screen, no other distractions at all. No other mmorp has that effect on me. It's an amazing game that way. The lag though....
8:25 - Severe diabetes incoming. lol
stat squish is great, just don't level squish
exactly reaching max level before even reaching moria would be terrible....almost nobody would see the rest of the game and just start spamming dungeons WoW style
stat squish is so important....i fucking hate those huge numbers everywhere, it's dumb.. one of the main reasons I love WoW Classic; they have the numbers just perfect.
I've played over 10.000 hours of LOTRO, the reason i quit was the constant level increase with every expansion, and i just found that never ending level grind to be extrmely boring.
great updates indeed. Very interested to see how lotro goes for the remainder of the year.