I was going to save this post for my last concerning Radiance, but since this week’s Tell the Community Team brings up the subject in the form of a poll, I thought I would go ahead and start discussing my thoughts on it and open it up to you all as well. I also encourage you to vote on the official thread as well, because without you doing so, Turbine has no idea how you feel.
So the theoretical solutions that Turbine provides us are as follows:
- Deed based, similar to Virtues/Traits.
- Temporary Buff, similar to Hope Tokens.
- Remove it entirely.
- A Stat, similar to DPS, on Legendary Items.
- A relic that can be added to a Legendary Item, similar to Runes, gems, etc.
- Leave it alone, it’s fine as it is.
My Thoughts on the Current System:
The current system has advantages. Yes, they are a grind, but they do guarantee one thing: that you will have enough Radiance to get through the encounter. Why is this an advantage? Well, coming from WarCraft where anyone could walk into any raid with any gear it there is no way to tell whether or not you are able to accomplish something in a dungeon other than to throw yourself against it over and over again. (Yes, I know that there are gear-score websites, but they are third-party and guestimates at best)This is of course taking for granted that you know the strategy and are strictly relying upon the stats provided by your current gear. So it’s nice that in LOTRO you are basically guaranteed that with the Radiance Gear you are able to proceed with that dungeon and do not have to guess if your gear is good enough.
The problem is that the Radiance gear with Mirkwood appears to be lackluster. Now, I realize that this is supposedly not “the best” radiance gear that we will see in this expansion. However, I was dismayed to find that the items I can purchase with Medallions of Moria have better statistics (save radiance) than the ones that can be purchased with Medallions of Dol Guldur. Especially considering that the dungeons containing the Medallions of Moria are now easier to run and usually provide a larger quantity of tokens than their Dol Guldur counterparts. I believe that the new gear should have been slightly better or at least on-par with the Moria barter gear. Sure, it makes those dungeons a bit obsolete, but I feel that making the gear slightly worse combined with making the Dol Guldur tokens harder to obtain hurts the expansion that was just released. I believe that the only reason that people are running them is partly because they’re new and partly because the majority take 3 people to accomplish instead of 6.
Looking at the Poll:
So after looking at the poll I can readily say I’m not a huge fan of any of the options. All of them have a continued possibility of a grind, of requiring a group, and of leading to an unsatisfactory solution; so I’ll stick with generalizations rather than declaring one as the panacea. First of all, I think that there should be some kind of grind to obtain radiance. Why? Because as much as we hate grinds, it does give us a feeling of accomplishment. Whether it’s a deed, a trait, armor, or legacy; there needs to be a feeling that you earned your way into a dungeon. Granted, it shouldn’t be because you ran Sword Halls two times a day for two weeks, but rather something interesting and a bit challenging (solo/small fellowship challenging, not fellowship/raid challenging).
Also, if it is removed from armor, there should not be a halt to bartered armor. I personally like changing my outfit and I like getting new armor. It’s one of the reasons I play a tank, because I love the way heavy armor looks. So even if Radiance is removed from the armor, please keep the sets around and keep producing new ones. We need something other than horses to purchase with barter tokens after all, and there’s only so many Legendary Weapons I can buy before I want to throw them at the barter vendor.
Also, don’t go overboard if it’s implemented with legacies or traits. Requiring me to run Dar Narbugud is not going to make me happy. Also, requiring me to wait on a random drop from a dungeon just to lose the Need/Greed roll 20 times isn’t going to make for a happy camper either. However, maybe offering some way to get small bonuses to radiance through explorer deeds and larger ones through Epic Storyline/Dugeon deeds might be much more feasible; especially if I have to run a dungeon 3-4 times instead of 40. Also, you eliminate the community declaring one dungeon the “farming dungeon” while the others become all but ignored. But again, if in turn the deeds rely upon random components (such as encounter spawns in skirmishes) or upon requiring 11 others to come with me to a dungeon then what’s the point?
Conclusion:
So, I’m curious to hear what you guys think about all of this. Many of you have farmed radiance gear much longer with much more dedication than I have and I’d like to know what you think about the system. Maybe you like it, maybe you’d like to see it changed, or maybe you’d like to see it thrown out the window?
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May 17, 2010 at 9:32 am
If they add radiance to deeds or weapons, I don’t want to see that be the only way you can get it. It should just be a bonus to what you have available already. You don’t want a situation where because someone won an auction for a cool bow or sword that has +60 radiance they think they can run level 60 instances with level 51 armour.
May 17, 2010 at 10:26 am
Agreed. There were times in WoW where we’d run dungeons with someone who was geared up the wazoo just to find out that they had no idea how to play their class. How they got geared, we didn’t know. But they’d do awful DPS, they’d mismanage aggro, or perhaps they had taken over the account from someone else.
I think that if they change the system there will definitely be a higher degree of “social gating” than there is right now.
May 17, 2010 at 9:58 am
Howdy Merric,
I don’t really mind the Radiance system at all. I suppose my view is a little bit skewed because I have grinded the Moria gear, I have grinded the Mirkwood “shortcut” 120 Rad set. I am currently in the process of “grinding” the DN set (grinding in quotes because it’s really quite a fun raid!).
Of the options above the only one I think that would work would be a deed based system. But how would turbine account for the players that already have all or some of the radiance gear? Would we barter the radiance off of our gear and get a token to turn in for points towards a radiance virute along with the piece of gear minus the radiance? Sounds kind of complicated. There’s probably a more simple way that some genius at Turbine has concocted, but give me a break, it’s Monday and I’m still on my first cup
It’s not just about having the radiance to dispel the gloom. It’s about becoming skilled enough as a player to handle the raids. If you’ve never been in DN before you likely won’t make it past the first boss in BG (or even TO the first boss). If you haven’t done any of the Moria six man instances in hard mode (besides GS) you probably won’t make it through DN. So really, what you’re doing, is honing your skills for the next big thing and the motivational force behind that is radiance gating.
This is also why, in some ways, I object to the barter medallions. Since that change I see some newer folks in my kin just running Grand Stairs (and only Grand Stairs) to get the moria gear. Or people only running SH for the quick 120 radiance set. Needless to say, these folks won’t be as skilled in their roles of those who may have run through Forges, Halls of Crafting, Waterwheels, Hall of Mirrors, 16th Hall, etc. So what I’m seeing is a watered down group of 65s who never enrolled in the school of hard knocks.
I do appreicate that turbine has offered some shortcuts to players with less time on their hands to be able to achieve the radiance required to experience all the content in the game. But make no bones about it, the Mirkwood gear is lackluster because it’s meant to be. The good stuff is in DN and it’s there to give players who work their butts off a reason to do so.
So in conclusion – I like it – It motivates players to become more skilled. There is good gear out there, it’s just a bit harder to get and is meant to reward players who go the extra mile with epic teal armor.
Moramoth, 65, Gladden
PS – Now the legendary item system.. that could use some work
May 17, 2010 at 11:44 am
Without doubt there is a lot that goes into a raid sans Radiance. And yes, GS and SH have become more popular for farming than the fields in the Shire. However, unlike the fields in the Shire, the raids are unforgiving and will cost you a pretty penny each time should you not participate in some of the things that you mentioned above such as going through a variety of dungeons and their associated Hard Modes. I think the frustration comes with the group requirement and the actual amount of grinding that is required.
That being said, there is a lot of benefit to running dungeons as well. I think what I’d like to see is something that spreads out which dungeons are run amongst players, but also with a more obtainable reward. But I do see how that alternative does lead to radiance gating becoming a “social” gating that has to be determined either in a raid or through running dungeons with your fellow raiders at other times.
May 17, 2010 at 10:38 am
Hey guys,
With regards to the Tell the community thread, I voted to remove it entirely. IMO the main reason for introducing radiance gear into the game was to help design the dungeons. If everyone has the same gear it becomes easier to balance an instance.
I don’t see the 3 and 6-man’s as really “honing” your skills as typically you find a few people in a fellowship who know the instance very well and they pull the rest through. Of course there are exceptions where a fellowship will enter an instance and learn it from scratch (did this with my kin in SG) but this is not as common as it takes a larger time commitment. Sure it helps those who have solo’d there way to cap and are now looking to gain some xp in fellowships to have to run these instances but for the majority of people who raid this is a non-issue IMO.
The best way to learn how to raid, is to raid. You learn how to run a certain raid by going in with a select group of people and completing the dungeon. For example, I could care less if someone has completed all of the Moria instances or not, the Watcher is a scripted raid (as are they all) and learning the timing of the phases and positioning (e.g., following instructions!) is what makes you successful in there. All the radiance does is make sure you have good enough gear to enter the dungeon. In SoA, all level 50 gear was close with regards to stats, therefore, if you were level 50 with level 50 gear, you could run raids.
The only other option for radiance that I see as viable is the deed option, however, they would have to be really careful on how it is implemented so it does not become more of a grind! If this is the route they choose I envision you being required to complete deeds within 3, 6 – man and raid situations, because after all, radiance is only relevant within raid dungeons so it just doesn’t make sense to be able to acquire it doing solo work. Don’t get me wrong, as someone who doesn’t have a ton of time to play I would love to be able to get my radiance without the large time sink that is full fellows and raids!
It is going to be interesting to see how the radiance and legendary item issues play out, hopefully we will hear something soon – does it not seem that Turbine has become eerily quiet since the WB takeover or is it just me?
May 17, 2010 at 11:05 am
My biggest issue with Radiance isn’t the grind to get the sets but more that you’re forced to always wear that set while raiding. I like the idea of bartering for armor sets, but add a separate radiance barter that would allow you to slot radiance of different armor pieces. I wouldn’t want it to increase the grind, or clutter up our inventories but maybe something like relics on legendary items such that there’s a separate UI that keeps track of it. And if they made radiance barterable then you could perhaps open it up such that there were numerous paths to get it.
May 17, 2010 at 12:56 pm
As a more casual player, I don’t really care about radiance. My real life hardly allows me to schedule my play time or find block of time when I have enough friends or kinnies online to run instances.
That is why I love the 3 and 6 mans, since I can usually find a group to go with for that content. But you really don’t need radiance gear for those. That might be why I would rather see it as a trait or deed, if it has to stay.
One of my other complaints about the radiance gear, is that it is too easy to get. Run GS a bunch. Run SH a bunch. That combined with the fact that none of the crafted armor is worth with a damn. My main was an armorer, but once radiance gear came out it became pointless for end game equipment. Sure the rift gear was better than anything crafted, but it was hard to get. Jewelers can still make nice endgame gear, weaponsmiths too, pretty much all other crafters can.
I think they need to give armourers something on par with reforged second age weapons or high end jewellery. There were some nice cloaks from loth. That was about it. My preference would be for their to be super high bartered gear from RAIDS (like when rift gear was the best) and have the next best gear be crafted. Your not going to get the symbol of Celembimdor (sp?) or the glass flask from a crafter, but there is nothing comprable for armourers.
May 17, 2010 at 12:20 pm
My biggest issue is alts.
Any system musn’t mean i have to spend 9 times as long grinding to get through the gates.
I love my alts, but i stopped trying to keep them up through the expansions because it’s just too much work.
I know the instances backwards, as i did them all on my main, so there is no “learning or ensuring i am skilled” factor – just make it account wide already.
May 17, 2010 at 12:43 pm
I agree that have some sort of account sharing would be awesome for things like radiance and traits. I’m not sure I’d want it to apply completely across the board but give you a jump start such that you’re not grinding the whole way again.
May 17, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Yeah, it would be nice to have some kind of account wide radiance (although certainly removing the system solves that issue), but I figure that if/when I get my alts to endgame I’m going to have one or two alts that my guild wants me to bring. Which will probably be a healer. Not that they wouldn’t want me to bring my guardian, but we (as most groups are) usually short on heals. And besides, I don’t mind.
May 18, 2010 at 7:44 am
Khaz, docholiday,
I agree with both of you that certain tasks are especially challenging on alts.
But I also think that it might be opening a can of worms if account-sharing characteristics get introduced.
First, it is radiance. Then, deeds and traits. A logical consequence would be – levels!
How different is “I don’t want to have to aquire the radiance gear AGAIN with my hunter – I already did it with my captain!” to “I don’t want to have to level AGAIN with my hunter – I already did it with my captain!”
I probably put it a little bit harsh. But I think one should think about this.
May 18, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I totally agree with you pjotr. I have a number of alts, yes doing virtures sux. But to me it part of having an alt. If you want to own that alt and I mean OWN it. You have to play it and level it and make it earn all its own stats and gear.
Personally, I roll alts partly because I am somewhat maxxed what I can do with my current main/alt. I want a change of style do something new. Part of the character development is earning the traits, gear that they need. I have heard that on WOW you could trade gear. Maybe that would be ok, so it is not all BOA/E. I don’t know. But I feel that if you want your alt to be as geared and traited as your main, the best way to do that for you alt to earn all those traits. MMOs are all about the grind, take that away and the joy from finishing the grind is gone.
May 17, 2010 at 12:49 pm
I think the deed system is workable, especially if you can earn radiance from a variety of challenges – some solo, some group, so you have to do a little of everything to get the rad required for BG, for example. Otherwise (e.g. with a legendary relic) I fear we would return to a “1) Run Instance 2) Lose Roll 3) Run Instance x20 Until You Win Roll” system which leads to player burnout. Gradual, incremental rewards (medallions, deed advancement) are the way to go IMO.
The armor would then have no radiance – but the set bonuses should make it desirable enough to run the instances anyways. Why do ppl still run MoM instances? For the good stats and unique set bonuses that T1 rad gear provides. In an ideal world, Turbine would release multiple barter sets with good set bonuses, so deciding what to wear while raiding would require more thought (rather than just wearing that max rad set as Docholiday noted). That would also give me the flexibility to use armor in raids that supports my HoH build instead of being limited to the DN or BG sets (that stack Might over Will — blah). More choices = more player customization = more satisfaction (obviously there are diminishing returns).
@Urailas: Turbine is usually quiet through these months between updates. They are probably doing PR for their other games or putting together materials for the public announcement for the next free update.
May 17, 2010 at 2:55 pm
I voted for the deeds / traits / virtue aspect of radiance, however, I’m not sure of the best way to do this.
Maybe additional radiance for your first completion of all of the Moria and higher instances? For example, you get
+10 radiance for each Moria Instance that you complete
+20 radiance for killing the watcher (can be done 2x)
+20 raidance for each of the bosses in DN
+15 for each of the Lothlorien / Moria Dungeons
+25 for Mirk Instances
+30 for Each boss in BG and and Extra +30 for the HM in BG.
Your radiance count would only be the top 6 numbers from your completions.
For example, my mini has finished
All 6 Moria Instances – 6 x 10 radiance
All 3 Loth Instances – 3 x 15 radiance
4 Bosses in DN – 4 x 20 radiance
0 Watcher runs – 0 x 20 radiance
SH, WP, SG in Mirk – 3 x 25 radiance
0 BG bosses – 0 x 30 radiance.
So, taking the top 6, I would have 3 x 25 and 3 x 20 radiance for 135 radiance.
With this way of ‘gating’ people would be free to wear whatever gear they desire and their completion of the other instances would ensure they have the experience to do the raid content.
May 17, 2010 at 3:14 pm
Yeah, this was something along the lines what I was thinking as well. I think what makes us nervous though is if they decide on something how is it going to be implemented? And if so, will they make it just as difficult as it is currently?
May 17, 2010 at 3:54 pm
I posted on the forums a system for Radiance Deeds last year, and am glad to see on the recent poll that there is still a lot of support for the idea. Removing it from armor would certainly make crafting more viable, as well as allow more tinkering with stat builds. Set bonuses are still there to give raiders a payout for their efforts.
The way I suggested the deeds be set up, is that real achievements be rewarded with radiance, and in a way to encourage people to visit more of the dungeons and content. Meta-deeds are a great addition, and would be the main inspiration for instance slayer deeds, while bosses would give radiance.
Bosses in raids would not be required to get enough radiance to enter raids, but would give the extra radiance to eliminate gloom for future raids. One good idea that came about from discussions on the forums was a cap on regional radiance, so there would be multiple ways to earn the required radiance, be it Epic story achievement, defeating instance bosses, or even completing all the slayer deeds in a region.
Multiple ways to get radiance, while still encouraging traffic in less-travelled content, and allowing any level cap gear to be useful is the key.
I dont think it was a large problem for our community to gate those who wanted to raid, in a few months at the lv 50 cap I had as many raiding experiences as the whole time since, which is very disappointing. And they really increased the number of people who felt shut out by radiance gating due to the forced desire for radiance gear. It has improved with the token system, but its just not doing enough.
May 17, 2010 at 4:59 pm
I agree with the above comments for account wide rad. The thought of grinding GS again on my warden makes me want to cry. My main should be able to share my medals with any alt.
May 17, 2010 at 5:22 pm
I voted to remove it entirely. Our Kin, founded in closed Beta, nearly died 6 months after Moria launched for two main reasons. A third of our regular groupers simply burned out running the Rad instances for themselves and then for others and left the game. Another third simply couldn’t get enough and left for ‘Raiding Kins’. The third that were left hung tight, rebuilt, and now we’re doing well again. Some of the people who burned out have also returned fortunately.
So from my perspective, the only thing Radiance has done is split the community, split the player base. The move to a medallion\token system has given more options but I’d still like to see it gone. I don’t buy the argument you need to know what gear to wear to get through an instance, but then LoTRO is my first MMO.
The only way I’d like to see Radiance stay in the game would be to tie it to completion of the Epic storyline. You complete the Epic, you get a passive Radiance trait which grants you access to radiance required instances. I can see a couple of advantages here. Firstly, how many people still haven’t finished Volume 1? Now it’s soloable, many more people have completed it, but still not everyone has, myself included.
Secondly, having ‘radiance’ in a LoTR setting attached to armour is so un-Tolkien as to be ridiculous. Various characters in LoTR inspired greatness to their fellows in most cases as a result of their previous actions. Completing an epic story Volume seems a wholly appropriate measure in this setting to reward those who are successul with an amount of ‘radiance’.
I’d prefer it gone completely as I say, but if not, lets bring us back to the LoTR part of LoTRO, and tie in that epic story.
May 18, 2010 at 6:49 am
You bring up some pretty good points, Killien. I think that there does need to be some kind of gear check, but I can’t help but wonder if the more flexible nature of SoA’s raid entry for The Rift is why people liked it so much?
I’m sorry to hear about the troubles of your kin, but I’m glad that you all are doing well!
May 18, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Remove “Radiance” entirely. The whole concept is about making people grind for gear to progress, in order to keep people busily playing and subscribed.
The already have a new kind of “grind”, like running skirmishes over and over to get the much wanted legacy upgrade scrolls for legendary weapons.
They shell out lifetime subs for low to EU players at the moment.
There are no reasons for Turbine or the players to keep/want radiance in any way.
May 19, 2010 at 1:59 pm
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=281368
Here’s the original post detailing our suggestion for Heroic Deeds as the basis of radiance. Glad it made the poll and Turbine is still thinking about ways to improve things.
May 19, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Definitely. Thanks for sharing the link, Gil.
Yeah, it’s good that Turbine is thinking about these things and taking all aspects into account. Right now I’m torn between Deeds and just removing it entirely. I guess it will all boil down to implementation should they ever revamp the system.
May 20, 2010 at 9:06 am
Interesting post, and some interesting suggestions. I have to say I’m guilty of just not having an opinion on this. I am totally aware and very interested in the debate and have been since it was implemented, but have been totally unaware of how to make up my mind about this. It was just there and I got on with it, but as much as I envy a challenge I really did not want to grind sword halls a but load of times with each alt.
I will say some kind of meta deed/legendary accomplishment sounds great, it also provides the potential long term for alternate routes to achieve this, so book accomplishment, HM boss accomplishments, and a whole host of things!
Even say book 1 completion gave a character 10 radiance and I ground book one on all 11 of my alts, its still only repeating 1 set of things 11 times which I would also be doing anyway, I’d have to do 44 sword halls (NM) to get 15 of the lowest amount barterable gear.
And after all why was Glorfindel so hard, why was Gandalf so hard- because of the deeds they had done, not the armour they were wearing!