Finally got back to LotRO yesterday, after a few day of conflicting evening activities. In the afternoon I did some solo play, learning about things on the short, stocky side with a dwarf named Frellin.
In the evening, Margie and I continued our Rohirrim Champ/Cap combo. Not quite as easy in the 10-11 range. First we decided to thrash out the crafting system to fulfill a couple of crafting missions we’d picked up (I was tempted to shout “Wood for Sheep” several times).
After that, we had a big mission up dealing with brigands in the northern Chetwoods. And … hit a wall. Or, rather, the ground, being defeated something like four times. Ugh. We’re still dealing with “scaling” problems with LotRO vs CoX — a group of four opponents, even blue ones, can be a serious threat, my healing morale abilities are fairly limited, and it’s way too easy to draw a crowd, with less-than-salutary results.
*sigh*
I note that, unlike an instanced mission setting (like CoX), the mobs don’t scale except to the general level of the population in the area. So a duo is under definite disadvantages vs. a larger fellowship.
Anyhow, decided to come back a level later, and instead pursued some mishes on the other end of town, including one that took us down toward Bree. Bree! Huzzah! The Big City! Garsh!
Found trainers. Hey! I have one of those goofy Heralds now! Yay!
Wandered about there a bit and … yow, the Prancing Pony! And … tucked in a back room, it’s Strider! Zowee! And he’s sending us on a mission (that we seem to have missed some prereqs to, but never mind). Investigate the brigand’s castle and find the source of terror! Protect the insane Ranger assigned to us as he lunges from mob to mob at full tilt and is immune to my morale powres! Rerun the mission multiple times trying to get him alive through the fearful brigands! Make some great progress, then during one of the Ranger’s few resting moments wander about to clean up the courtyard and get mobbed by a dozen brigands! Discover yourself outside Bree again and with the mission restarted.
*sigh*
Seemed a good time to call it an evening. Or, rather, I did while Margie did some quick research on the quests we’d been flubbing.
Frustrating, but good times.
I don’t know which was the most amusing online chatter we saw — the guy asking “Where are the trinkets in the Barrow Downs” (which just made me giggle — “Hey, let’s go to the Barrow Downs and pick up some trinkets, maybe a snow globe or a charm for my braclet, or even a ‘We broke into Barrow and lost half our party and all I got was this rotting t-shirt” t-shirt), or the folks who were consistently challenged spelling “Minstrel” and “Guardian.”
Combe is where you’re finally truly out of the kiddie pool and into the main game. There is a definite and not entirely forgiving learning curve.
Just keep telling yourself ‘there is no debt.’
1. Make sure you note when a mission is has the little “fellowship” icon next to it in the big log. They are NOT JOKING when they say you need a fellowship. Two people != fellowship. Duo will own any solo quest you have. For the fellowship ones… yeah, get on the LFF channel and ask if anyone else needs it.
2. Remove the OOC channel. You will not miss it. Ditto “Trade”. Use the /advice channel, it’s generally very good.
3. Use your resources. Translation: please call me if you hit a wall.
4. Yeah, you went on that mission for strider about five or six levels too early.
5. To all of the Combe/Lumber yard missions, then Staddle, THEN go to Bree. Order of missions should be the lowest level stuff first, unless it’s a fellowship one, in which case skip it and do the next one.
If it’s any consolation, the first couple brigand missions in the woods killed my first guy many many many many times before I figured it out. Now doing it the second time around, I flew through them in maybe 45 minutes. It gets better, is what I’m saying.
And do everything you can to keep runners from running, unless you WANT more attackers (sometimes it’s faster to let them come to you). Unlike CoH (which, as you’ve noted, is a very different genre in this regard), guys running off is very bad news.
Our Kinship a Captain who consistently spells it “Captian.” >shudder
Also, there’s some tricks to the herald that makes him pretty useful. I will share when I see you.
Yeah, we’ve noticed the effect of runners and the many helpful friends they return. And I can imagine heralds could cause similar problems.
I’m a little disturbed by the “fellowship” requirements (i.e., something beyond 2). What quantity of content does that block us from, if we’re not into the LFF kind of thing?
Well, for one thing, all the Epic storylines have a significant number of FS quests.
Once you get into the 20s, you’re going to start running into a lot of FS quests. My level 29 Hunter currently has 36 quests, of which 16 are FS; 4 of those have gone gray.
Of course, you have RL friends playing, so if you’re on the same server as they are, you can help each other out.
Furthermore, if you’re not terribly concerned about xp, you can hold off on the FS quests until you’re some levels above them, at which point a duo may be strong enough to complete them. remember, even if you abandon a quest, you can always pick it up again at another time.
I still manage to always have something to do with my characters, even if I can’t get together a group of Kinnies to help me out. There’s a lot of content in this game!
Painful antisocial ain’tcha?
Kate and I duo pretty much everything we can duo, assemble a few fellowship things we need to get done, and then either find folks from our Kinship (Council of the Secret Fire — a not-really-RP guild of gamers mostly in from RPG.net), usually with a PuG person or two.
Or Vice versa — quite often it’s a bunch of PuGGers with one Kinship person.
All kidding aside, I understand your aversion to PuGs. Here’s some expectations, born of CoH, you need to throw away:
1. PuGs are forever. In CoH, you join a PuG group and, if it doesn’t dissolve immediately, the mindset seems to be “okay, we’ve assembled, we are going to run @@#%@ing missions until our fingers fall off. In LotRO PuGs are more like “Hey, who needs to take down Jasper Mudbottom? I do! Me too! [Go take out Jasper.] Good working with you. See ya!” And you’re off on your merry way.
2. PuG people are morons. Okay, yes, sure, some people are. Those are the folks you say “okay, nice job, and good luck” as soon as the mission is done. However, the older playerbase in LotRO (a huge portion of the playerbase is over 35) alone often ensures that you have some good, intelligent people on board for a run. As a general rule, I just tell people with stupid names ‘no’ — that weeds things out quickly.
In the few times when we’ve actually spent the whole night in a PuG, it’s been some of the best fun we’ve had in that or any other game, especially once people enable voice chat (even if they can’t talk, they can listen to instructions and coordinate), simply because the quality of player is generally higher, in my opinion.
Don’t fear the PuG, is what I’m saying.
Or get into a Kinship. Avo’s in one. Kate and I are in one that I can personally say is great and very supportive and helpful.
The fact of the matter is, in Lord of the Rings, some things are too tough for any one person. That’s the SETTING.
As for the game play needing it? Well, simply put, yes, sometimes you need a full group and then some. The first “boss” in the first true “Dungeon Instance” (not to be confused with the Instanced missions you’ve been running) in the game is a harder, more complicated fight than any TF boss in CoH. It is therefore damn gratifying when you win. (And that one Dungeon is easily the same length to run as a major TF in CoH. You NEED a good group for that.)
Heck, there’s a short instanced mission to the top of Weathertop that has a more complicated boss fight than anything but maybe Hamidon in CoH. You do that one around level 22? 24?
Groups are sometimes needed, yes. Upside: groups are generally quite fun.
Doyce is right to mention the setting. The devs wanted to capture the whole idea of disparate (and perhaps desperate) folks banding together in a “Fellowship” to face great evil.
I’ve been in a few PUGs, usually when one of my Kinnies is in one and calls for help. In my experience, once the first quest is done, most people are willing to continue to the end of the chain (particularly for Epic quests).
I’m more likely to join another solo player who is obviously working on the same quest I am. Occasionally it will turn out to be some punk who wants to run around and grab all the aggro he can, ruining my attempts at aggro management, but that seems to be the exception. Most of the people I’ve met this way are good folks. Some even get added to my Friends list.
And it is nice that most of the idiots flag themselves as such by picking stupid names (I saw “Lleeggoollaass” the other day).
But not Leg o’ lass? ;P
On the advice channel, a few days ago:
Legollas: “Where can I find someone who can help me with this quest?”
Me: “Not sure… ask Gimlii.”
And yes, I’d actually seen “Gimlii” about and hour before.
He was, of course, a minstrel. *headdesk*