Nov 20
From One Turbine To Another
You may have already read Darren’s short post on the Monday night group’s decision to jump from DDO to Lord of the Rings Online. From his post:
“Is DDO a bad game because we left? No…it isn’t. I think this is just a case of some of the more glaring flaws of the game just being amplified by our specific group dynamic. Yes, it is said that DDO is great for a static group of players…just not for this specific static group of players.”
He nailed it there; basically we screwed ourselves by not really planning our group makeup ahead of time and not having a full group. More on our DDO experiences and our plans for LotRO below.
Update: If you’re reading this and play LotRO, feel free to give advice! One of the best parts of talking about my adventures via MMOG Nation has been the helpful comments from folks like Kendricke. Chip in!
Our group consisted of:
Fighter / Cleric / Monk / Rogue / Rogue-Wizard
As you can imagine, this resulted in lots and lots of death. We didn’t have enough healing or tanking, too much squishy DPS … it was a constant problem. As a result what should have been encounters appropriate for our level were too hard for us, and on the whole Monday evenings ended up with us having sort of demoralizing experiences.
The irony of our decision Monday (prompted by me, I’ll admit it), is that last week we had a blast. It just totally clicked and we tore through this great dungeon, had a bunch of fun. As per usual we didn’t actually complete it because we weren’t powerful enough to overcome the last boss, but the evening was lots of fun.
Over the course of our time in Dungeons and Dragons Online, we had a couple of super-fun times punctuated by these incredibly frustrating moments. This mood swing, really, was what made it hard to have a ‘real’ good time. We liked the blowout fun moments, a lot, obviously. Fun is good! But the fun of a weekly MMO session isn’t just the fun, it’s the camaraderie. It’s the talking and the chatting and the socializing. It’s really really quite hard to socialize when you’re all swearing and cursing the names of the Twelve, the designers, and Gary Gygax all at once.
Which brings us around to Lord of the Rings Online. LotRO has always been a game in my ‘lamentation’ list, and MMO that I knew I would have really liked had I ever really taken the time to dig into it. A picture-perfect launch, regular content updates, a likeable spokesperson (Jeff Steefel), and some great storytelling all add up to make it a game very much like what I’ve been whining for on this site for the last two+ years.
Of course, I’ve been so busy playing other non-LotRO games that I’ve never really dug into it. I’m thrilled, thrilled, that we’re going to be playing regularly. I can tell the other guys are too because there’s a ridiculously long thread on the subject sitting in my gmail account. We’ve actually gone to the trouble of planning things ahead of time this go around.
Michael: Dwarven Guardian (Tank)
Craig: Hobbit Minstrel (Healer)
Brent: Captain (Buffs/Healing)
Adam: Runemaster (DPS/Healer)
Darren: Warden (Off-tank)
Jonathan: Loremaster (CC)
I think that sounds like a pretty damned good group. We’ve got doubling up on our core functions, with DPS and some crowd control to boot. I’m told that the Warden and Loremaster can step outside their core roles a bit too, so we should be ready for just about anything. We’re going to step off as level 10 players on Monday to jump into the Fellowship oriented content. I’ll keep you posted.
9 Comments so far
I’m still playing LotRO regularly. Join me on Arkenstone some time!
Bit worrying; seems as if you chaps were doing how I always thought it should be done ‘Properly’; regular group, regular night of the week, progressing (or not) together, etc.
Something more than just that needed to fully appreciate the thing? Looks like a reasonably balanced group there?
Matt: We’re over on Nimrodel! Sorry man. : / Had some connectiones with folks there.
Hemlock: Unfortunately it’s not. Our group was way too heavy on DPS. No fault to Craig (who played the rogue/wizard) but that character concept just doesn’t do well in a group. And the Monk class is a bit fiddly; none of us really knew how it worked.
As a result two of our five groupmates were probably under-utilized. Group size in DDO is six; we really could have used a second healer (a bard or pally would have been great) and an offtank.
Glad to hear you’ve come to Middle-Earth for a bit. I’m interested to see how your opinion of the game develops after you’ve played for a bit.
Regarding the group makeup and the issues you had with DDO. I think LoTRO is much more forgiving about group makeup for 90% of it’s content. I can’t comment much on raids, but even on most of the epic story-line quests you can get away with some pretty un-diverse groups.
Send Brynulf a whisper if you’re ever on Landroval.
Looks like a smart group set up. My friends and I learned awhile ago that although we may want to play certain classes we all have more fun if we make a solid group. Looks like that’s what you should have, so good luck to yah.
You guys should be able to tear through the book quests with that group. Some of the best content in the game ( even as you are leveling up) is group content in LoTRO.
My advice would be to coordinate offline somewhat so that by the time you get to your weekly play session you have the same group quests lined up. And do every single quest in the Breelands so that you can skip the Lonelands if you guys don’t like it (many players cite it as their least favorite zone in the game, and a reason for quitting). If you do everything in the Breelands (including the old forest and some tough quests in barrow downs) you can actually head straight up to the North Downs and start in on some orange quests. Took me three toons to figure out that was possible.
In any case, that group should take you all the way through Cairn Doom and your legendary traits if everyone ends up digging LoTRO.
hey, i don’ thave a Hunter, I have a Captain. Am I supposed to re-roll now? (I will if you want me to, I really like the Hunter, but the Cap seems cool too.)
@Michael: Agreed in hindsight. The one level of rogue was an mainly an attempt to have something to fall back on when the spells were lacking, especially early on. But I know 3.5 isn’t forgiving to multi-classing of any flavor, and thief/mages have _always_ been problematic in terms of survivability, even back in the old AD+D days (and yet, I’ve always liked them, me and my jack-of-all-trades fetish.)
@Brent: For my part, I’d vote Captain… it means some back-up healing, plus the only rez capability in the game (if I’m not mistaken). But that is just me being a bit insecure, not sure I have enough healing to cover everyone. Tho if you go full-on DPS with a hunter, Adam will be able to spend more of his time healing.
@Damianov: no, Minstrels (primary healer) can rez, Lore-masters can rez (out of combat only) and Captains can rez. Eventually Captains and Minstrels get the ability to rez in combat as well but it has a fairly significant cooldown. 30mins I think.
I have a Captain alt and it’s a lot of fun. I always felt Captains were very paladin-ish but done in what I felt was a “better” way than most paladin classes I’ve seen. They’re best with the halberd though, which is a two-hander which means each attack is a little slower. They have awesome buffs, though some don’t last as long so to an extent playing a Captain well involves a bit of micro-management. But they are a very versatile class, which is what I look for.
The hunter on the other hand, is a blast in terms of shear single-target dps, but other than being able to taxi everyone around with the various “guide” (ie. teleport) skills, they seem to me more of a one-trick pony. Dps, dps, dps and a little crowd control on the side with traps. Now, don’t get me wrong, they’re not useless or unwanted. In fact I don’t ever recall playing an MMO where I’m constantly seeing groups looking for hunters (or champions) for dps instead of *only* looking for the generic tank/healer combo.
But I like being able to fill multiple roles which is why a Lore-master is my main; it’s the most complicated class in the game to play well. Minstrels are surprisingly fun; similar to WAR (though a completely different mechanic) they need to fight a bit to get to some of their best buffs, etc. though it’s not required at all for the standard heals.
It’s too bad you guys aren’t on Arkenstone, I’d be more than happy to run around with y’all…