Lord of the Rings Online is launching two new Legendary Servers, debuting new challenges, rewards, a

System

Lord of the Rings Online is launching two new Legendary Servers, debuting new challenges, rewards, and progression [SPONSORED] | MMORPG.com

Lord of the Rings Online features an immersive recreation of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and now VIP players are invited to begin anew and make a fresh start on the new Legendary Servers: Shadowfax and Treebeard.

Read the full story here

Whytewulf

ouch -60%

foppotee

I'm not sure this is the type of thing to lure me back into LotRO after years away but very interesting ideas for these 2 new servers.

Po_gg

Whytewulf said:

ouch -60%

Ouch indeed... just in my case it's about the implementation itself  

(or the too high expectations, maybe)

In the Q&A (covered it a bit under https://www.mmorpg.com/news/lotros-midsummer-festival-has-been-extended-through-july-11th-2000122355) they were talking about the servers will feel like faster and slower, Shadowfax is about 1.5x faster, and Treebeard is less than half of normal, about 40%.

I find it a tad bit lacklusting they ended up with a simple and flat-out xp buff/debuff...

Anyway, the difficulty slider is there, gets stress-tested, and then arrive to the live servers as well in the near future I hope.

Kataal

Whytewulf said:

ouch -60%

Same. I was looking forward to this when I heard one of the servers would progress more slowly, as I assumed that meant as far as unlocks/expansions go and allow more casual players to enjoy a progression server.

As soon as I saw that you also have reduced exp, I immediately lost all interest. I didn't need a higher rate, just the same baseline as it would have been playing SoA, and I don't really understand who this was supposed to appeal to.

Po_gg

Kataal said:

Same. I was looking forward to this when I heard one of the servers would progress more slowly, as I assumed that meant as far as unlocks/expansions go and allow more casual players to enjoy a progression server.

That's exactly the point of Treebeard.

Kataal said:

As soon as I saw that you also have reduced exp, I immediately lost all interest. I didn't need a higher rate, just the same baseline as it would have been playing SoA,

Odd... I mean, I too ouch'd (for the boring xp debuff implementation), but their original idea of "less than half of leveling progression" is a solid one.

You can't have the same baseline, game has so much xp in it, you'd overlevel everything and reach the cap way before the next content drop, no matter how casually you play.

(ed. that's why many players use the xp disabler turtle stone on the live servers)

I believe even with this debuff you'll still end up 1-2 levels above the area by the time you finish... if you do all the quests I mean.

FrodoFragins

Whytewulf said:

ouch -60%

well the first legendary servers were -40% I believe.  This is based off of the standard leveling.

Anyway, I'll probably try Treebeard after I finish AC:Odyssey DLC.  But that's only because I like leveling and have a lifetime account.  I checked a few times to see how the Twitch streams were doing and they were pretty damn low.

It sure seems extremely niche at this point.  The game really can't support too many servers.  It's too bad they can't afford to let their engineers rebalance the content and itemization for these servers.

Scot

The whole point of a slower progression server is you level more slowly, not sure what the fuss is about.

Viper482

Whytewulf said:

ouch -60%

There are a lot of people who pay real money (albeit very cheap) for an item to turn off xp altogether. LOTRO is a unique game with a unique community that understands it is about the journey, not the destination. Modern MMO race to endgame warriors need not apply.

elfdragon21

Treebeard is AWESOME! I haven't had this much fun playing in a long time. The difficulty tiers make it challenging and fun. I definitely recommend going back and trying it. It has really made the game more fun. I wish there was better drops based on your tier, but maybe that would have been too difficult to implement. Right now, I don't really see a difference between Tier "Deadly +1" and up, so I believe it's just for the extra challenge.

Utinni

Is this still the live game with expansion lock like last time or did they make it proper?

Kataal

Po_gg said:

Kataal said:

Same. I was looking forward to this when I heard one of the servers would progress more slowly, as I assumed that meant as far as unlocks/expansions go and allow more casual players to enjoy a progression server.

That's exactly the point of Treebeard.

Kataal said:

As soon as I saw that you also have reduced exp, I immediately lost all interest. I didn't need a higher rate, just the same baseline as it would have been playing SoA,

Odd... I mean, I too ouch'd (for the boring xp debuff implementation), but their original idea of "less than half of leveling progression" is a solid one.

You can't have the same baseline, game has so much xp in it, you'd overlevel everything and reach the cap way before the next content drop, no matter how casually you play.

(ed. that's why many players use the xp disabler turtle stone on the live servers)

I believe even with this debuff you'll still end up 1-2 levels above the area by the time you finish... if you do all the quests I mean.

Okay that's fair. I'd thought they meant 60% less than it would have been during SoA to make it extra super slow to level, rather than 60% less than the current live rate.

I decided to give it a shot after reading this earlier and the rate does feel exactly like it should so far.

olepi

I went back to play on Treebeard and the game is totally different and fun. Set it to one of the hard settings, and you have to worry about being ambushed by regular mobs. Turn off the name plates, so you don't see where they all are right away. Now you can't just blindly run everywhere ignoring the overland mobs.

The Eye of Sauron reminds me of closed beta. Back then, they had a mechanic like "horror", which you would get from certain encounters. It would melt your screen, and also produce this moaning kind of sound. You could give this to other people if you had it.

We all protested loudly, and they took it out before launching. But now with the Eye, your screen goes blurry and people are complaining again. I don't mind this, but the sudden firebombs are a little much.

Even so, with the overland mobs being somewhat dangerous, the whole feeling of the game is different. It reminds me of launch.

Now you spend a lot more time in an area, you do most or all of the quests, you have to pay attention to where you are going. I'm really liking it!

Nebless

Nyctelios said:

agree but sadly mid-game content is a wasteland. I had to leave many quests behind cause nobody were there to help me out (group content).

That hasn't been a problem for a number of years now. 

Not only have they made the game more soloable, but for those mandatory group quests in the Epic quest line they introduced a solo mode where the quest giver gives you an inspiration buff item which raises your morale and stamina so you can do the quest.

I've leveled up to 107 totally solo and with the exception of group dungeons / raids haven't had to skip a thing.

Aethaeryn

Po_gg said:

Kataal said:

Same. I was looking forward to this when I heard one of the servers would progress more slowly, as I assumed that meant as far as unlocks/expansions go and allow more casual players to enjoy a progression server.

That's exactly the point of Treebeard.

Kataal said:

As soon as I saw that you also have reduced exp, I immediately lost all interest. I didn't need a higher rate, just the same baseline as it would have been playing SoA,

Odd... I mean, I too ouch'd (for the boring xp debuff implementation), but their original idea of "less than half of leveling progression" is a solid one.

You can't have the same baseline, game has so much xp in it, you'd overlevel everything and reach the cap way before the next content drop, no matter how casually you play.

(ed. that's why many players use the xp disabler turtle stone on the live servers)

I believe even with this debuff you'll still end up 1-2 levels above the area by the time you finish... if you do all the quests I mean.

This would actually work well for me with the difficulty slider giving more XP.  It might be the same speed of progression without facerolling mobs?

Po_gg

Aethaeryn said:

This would actually work well for me with the difficulty slider giving more XP.  It might be the same speed of progression without facerolling mobs?

The slider does give an xp buff, but far from enough to push you back into "same speed of progression".

Treebeard has an overall, flat -60% debuff, and the difficulty (on the deadly tiers) gives a maximum of 20% xp buff. (based on the tier it varies between 5% and 20%)

So, on Treebeard you're always in the negative, but when the slider hits the live servers, it will be the same speed in effect - the same pretty fast speed, might I add, with overleveling everything.

The theory behind the buff is, I believe, to compensate the time loss you get from the difficulty raise. Slower kills, slower questing, so you get a bit more xp.

And fights really are slower, as @olepi said above.

On deadly tiers you must kite a lot, especially with 2-3 mobs around, or they beat you senseless in seconds.

Still, a small fun fact: Raninia had an interview the other day, where he said Treebeard got its first level 50 character even before Shadowfax... and it surprised them as well, but it proves players have a lot of different preferences and playstyles.

Probably a powerlevel type of player thought it's a bigger challenge to reach the cap first on the slow server.

While at it, other notable tidbits from the interview,

-previews of both the brawler class and the incoming Gundabad expansion will be on Bullroarer next month

-LI revamp, while still in the works, it seems to be a replace instead of a revamp. They wanna make a new system (probably replacing the existing LIs as well?), streamlining and casual friendly.

Only one LI will be needed, with an easy way to get it to the cap, where it will be grindy to min-max, like the rest of the raid gear currently.

But everyone else not in the "endgame raiding focus" group, will be able to ignore that grind since it will be good enough for anything else.

Probably take away the TA/SA/FA distinction as well.

FrodoFragins

My understanding is that you can still buy XP boosts and farming of all things was fast for leveling.  I'll be honest and say that was actually a real turnoff for me.  Kind of like how a handful of people could do the raids at launch of the Legendary servers.  I remember seeing a player with two separate 50% xp boost buffs and thinking, why bother?

I did briefly play on Treebeard, after trying to successfully install the game three separate times.  I decided that I wanted to read all of the quests for once and decided to reroll on a normal server so I can level all the way to the cap that way.

I unlocked a stoutaxe dwarf and am rolling a champion.  Googling revealed that each race has different animation speeds and some can be very noticeable and also impact dps.  I think that's absurd honestly but I'm just leveling the char for RP purposes.

It's cool that people are really enjoying the difficulty slider, but the title is meaningless as you can be followed by someone with a lower setting that can help you(or just level with the farming profession).  They already have a layering system so I think they should have implemented it for the difficulties.

skeaser

Viper482 said:

Whytewulf said:

ouch -60%

There are a lot of people who pay real money (albeit very cheap) for an item to turn off xp altogether. LOTRO is a unique game with a unique community that understands it is about the journey, not the destination. Modern MMO race to endgame warriors need not apply.

I'm one of those people. I lock my experience as soon as I hit the cap for a zone so that I don't overlevel while finishing my deed log for the zone, then unlock exp once I head to the next zone.