HAS GAMEPLAY IN LOTRO CHANGED DRAMATICALLY?

Helms Deep in Lotro

A blog about the God Mode in LOTRO for everyone 

and .... how Turbine managed to SHATTER the gameplay completely!!

Last week I have experienced the gameplay on Helms Deep, in order to make new maps and new blogs about all the exciting new areas of West Rohan. Exciting? Mmmmmm..... Although the lands are beautiful and the musical scene around Edoras is great, there is definitely something wrong with the gameplay. Since they have changed all skills and trait using, the game hasn't become exciting as it was. It's even dull now, boring, painfully boring for players who have joined the game since fall 2007 (like me).
Why do I come to this harsh conclusion?. Well, let me summon some of my major complaints:

Class Trainer: is obsolete now, why do you need a trainer? You get your skills by clicking in a tree. Although this concept isn't new at all (see Conan Online), it has one major drawback: you loose the connection with your personal trainer. Which is great for roleplaying or the flavour of this kind of game. Lotro is known because of the friendly fellowships and nice players. Now, its almost completely solo, you don't even have to talk to you trainer anymore for new skills. How rude!

Bard and Trait-slotting: the Bard is obsolete now. You only need him for buying some lousy instruments. And even that is not interesting, the best instruments can be bought at the auction hall or simply buy them from other players. 
And you don't need the bard for traits anymore. Which is a shame. I miss the flavor of visiting a bard to manage my traits. Moreover, traits can be slotted and change within seconds now, free of any costs and at every moment and at every place. For example, as an elf, you haven't to bother anymore about choosing the invisible trait (Sylvan shadows) or slotting the travel to Rivendell trait. Just rotate them when you need them. Convenient Yes! But challenging? Absolutely not. You haven't to make a difficult decisions anymore. Its just child's play now .... Like a God ...

Looking for book pages, for special skills: a silly quest now, only for turbine point grinders. You personal trainer still sells books. You have to find pages of them in certain regions, and in old times you needed them for some special skills (spells). Which was good. But now, all the skills are easily bought with skill points, like a spoiled child you get the best skills early in the game. You haven't to work for this anymore, only if you need TP points. Why? I don't know. It look's like Give a child the most wanted Toy during Christmastime for free.

Godmode and DPS : most players will slot their dps skills early in the game. Which means that most classes will become dps classes now. So why bother about a class? Choose one at random! And all the dps is Lotro is Godmode anyway. A runekeeper at level 85 does 10.800 dmg easily now. But the best God option now is: play a Loremaster or Minstrel!

The Loremaster's and his God Mode combat pet: the Loremaster is now a true god/goddess, especially when you slot all the skills for pets. The pets does massive damage and with an insane skill you can send ALL your combat pets into combat. There is even a skill to increase your level of your combat pet above your own level. This is really a programmers error. Now you can combat, as a loremaster, purple colored mobs of 8 levels higher then yourself. And, since the pets does massive damage, like the lynx, an enemy is killed in a short time. We tried this God Mode pet out in the Limlight Gorge in the Great River area. There is a huge spider on the north flank with 170.000 morale. You can solo this spider as a LM easily now, even if the spider is PURPLE! How? Just tank the creature with your pet, which is 4 levels higher than you. When the pet dies, don't stay to close. Since you can now INSTANTLY resummon your pet when he is dead, its back within a second. So, the pet is virtually immortal now (yeah: God Mode). Just watch your distance, and if the monster comes too close, step aside a bit. And let the pet take aggro constantly...

Fellowship quests: for the epic book quests you needed a fellowship in the past. Not anymore! Classes with a God Mode pet (loremaster) or a herald(Captain) can do the work solo with their personal assistant now, even on 200.000 Morale bosses. So, captains and loremasters don't need a fellowship anymore. A good guardian or champion can also solo a boss of 200.000 Morale, probably even a Minnie too. These classes don't need fellowships anymore I guess... And think: the whole game was based on fellowship play, it's defenitely biased to solo play now.

Loremaster Ring of fire: a little public secret is the skill Ring of Fire of the Loremaster. Just use it when 3-5 mobs are around you. Each person and each mob damage the other with this skill. So, a loremaster (1 person), with 5 enemies, does 6x the same damage on each individual enemy. Wow, you are a God now!



Conclusion
Lotro is Godmode for the veteran and hardcore players now. All challenging options are gone. Good players don't need fellowships anymore, they can do every epic quest solo. So, the developers shattered the core of the game. For me, Lotro has become a dull game, without any challenges anymore. Only monster vs. free peoples combat is a bit of fun, all the rest is a dull repetition of monster and quest grinding. The most challenging quests - really! - are now the search for cakes, cookies, apples, mirrors or braziers, or looking for lost children in West Rohan. Combat is an easy piece of cake now, searching for objects are the hardmode quests now. 

The developers are just lucky. If they had released this expansion together with Elder Scrolls online, perhaps the game could have been dead within 4 weeks.

I am still waiting in anticipation for a major tweak. If even have no problem when they changed all the skills back to the system before Helms Deep. Or if they create a server with a level cap of 50/60 and only the lands of Eregion and Moria, and Ettenmoors of course ...
Now, all challenging quests, dangerous mobs, epic bosses en fellowship quests are extremely boring... All deja-vu: ehh didnt I battle that bear, raven, crow, boar, wolf, when I was level 15? Now I am 95, but only the morale of the mobs is higher and my dps is ofc insane. So, in conclusion: sadly, no news from the western Front (Rohan).

Developers do your work! Change this beautiful game back to a more challenging game as it was before. Restore the trainer and bard and restore the most wanted fellowship quests. And please, please, nerf the Godmode damage skills! SO: steal all these dps toys of all the spoiled kids immediately!

Elannah, now a bored Goddess Elf in Lotro