Doyce shares a fine article on “Damage Types and Great Protection.” On the one hand, it feels like, “oh, one more thing to have to keep track of,” but I think it’s an important aspect of Middle Earth — just think of those trusty blades of Westernesse and the enchantments woven about them from the books, etc.
Thanks for linking to my post :).
It’s not too bad, overall. I guess it’s kind of like weaknesses in a JRPG. Ice monsters hate fire, etc. For the most part, mobs just have things they’re strong against or weak against and anything you use will do an OK amount of damage. It’s just that if you want to do the most damage, certain types are best. Personally I don’t think much about this aspect of it.
The main thing that threw me off is Great Protection. The game doesn’t tell you about it; it’s suddenly just on a bunch of mobs in very specific areas of the game. Hitting things for 5 damage with a normal attack that otherwise averages in the 80s+ is frustrating, to say the least…
In my opinion, the game’s tooltip makes it sound like GP is removed with a specific special item/weapon. It made me think that I had to do some sort of quest first to get past it (like you have to do to go in the eastern half of Angmar). That isn’t the case at all though, you just need specific damage type weapons. Luckily they’re rather plentiful.
New damage types for players coming up in The Mines of Moria. The Warden can do Frost damage, and I was told (tentatively) by a dev that Legendary Weapons will be able to do Shadow damage.
I hadn’t seen the wiki post, but have been tracking creatures’ resistances since my Loremaster got the appropriate skill.
Hit th Great Protection mobs in Sarnur tonight. Fortunately, my main-hand weapon did Light damage. 🙂
Some of the folks in our Kinship actually carry a weapon for each damage type (excepting Common).
That’s where the model starts to break down, literarily. One just cannot think of Aragorn sizing up the approaching enemy, stroking his chin, and saying, “What do you recommend, Halbarad? Shadow damage? Or my trusty blade of the Westernesse?”
“Frost, I should think, milord,” Halbarad replies, pulling the blade from Aragorn’s multi-blade sheath slung over his shoulder. “And I’d play it a little to the right.”
Yeah, maybe not. It takes one out of the game — and is also fiddly to have to do (one reason I’ve never done stone or shadow defense in CoX).
From a story point of view think of it like this: My character has a magic sword (now with flames!) that does a great job against ice monsters. It’ll even do decent damage against normal monsters and suffers a bit when attacking flaming monsters.
However here in the Mines of Moria is the Balrog (who had Great Protection) and only the legendary powers of the fabled Shadow Blades can humble the beast. Certainly normal, or less heroic weapons will make it take notice, but only the mightiest magics can bring it low.
Basically if you’re going to face an epic enemy, you have to take that epic enemy’s weakness into account (Who knew Smaug’s weakness was normal arows . . . ). Yes, the golf bag analogy is still a fair comparison for how many players will play with this mechanic, but anyone truly concerned with their character’s story will use their chosen weapon even when it is at a slight disadvantage. It’s against foes with the Great Protection that will force the hero to seek a better weapon for the job.
The real challenge for the LoTR devs will be to keep from over using the Great Protection mechanic simply because players know how to defeat it.
It seems to me that this game, similar to CoX, is more about the storytelling/journey than it is aout dealing with the min/max power game crowd.