1741

Awesome, I picked up that quest pack, even though it’s going to be awhile til I get there. I need to find a good guide to legendaries, legacies, and such because I don’t have a good handle on that system, it’s pretty confusing.

1742

Don’t bother, they’re changing LI’s in the next update. Seems like quite a big overhaul to me. I’ve stalled my lvl 54 character as she’s a Hunter (which is also getting a slight revision) and she’s the only one with LI’s. I’ve also stalled my Warden since I want him to do as much in Evendim as possible and that whole area is getting reworked to be played through in lvl 30-40, apparently.

1743

I just downloaded the free-to-play version and have levelled an elven hunter to level 6. I’m having fun so far, but waiting for it to get challenging. I played solo until I reached the quest where you have to inspect the soil and take samples from dying bears. At that point someone invited me into a fellowship and I played with them for a while.

So what’s the main point with fellowships? Is it just about having power in numbers and not dying as often? I have very little experience with MMOs.

1744

Others can give a more detailed answer but some of the content in the game is designed so that it’s extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get past it without a fellowship. At least, if you are tackling that content at a level appropriate time. LOTRO has been pretty good at making the epic quest mostly solo-able for folks who choose not to group.

1745

The update apparently is going to have some significant changes to tailoring and metalsmithing, most of which I’m on-board with and excited about but there is one bit that I am not thrilled about.

Apparently they are doing away with racial variants for armour and giving the base recipe multiple outputs which cover the racial cosmetics. (The stats may also vary along with the appearance.) I like that change but I’m concerned about the wording here:

So what does recipe consolidation mean for the Metalsmith and Tailor? The most important thing to note is that all racial variant armour recipes are no longer accessible and have been removed from the game. To be more specific:

All unused racial variant armour recipe scrolls have been removed from inventory and treasure
All learned racial armour variant recipe entries have been removed from the crafting panel

My hope would be that if I only know the dwarf-make version of a recipe, I will find that it has been converted to the base version, not removed from my crafting control panel all together. Folks on the forum are interpreting it to mean that I will lose the recipe all together if I don’t currently know the base version. Hopefully that’s just hysteria.

Either way, it will have implications for any single-use recipes you have stock piled so you may want to think about that before the update.

Details here:

http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdiaries/1055-update-2-crafting-developer-diary?start=1

1746


So, yeah. A Tactical Critical multiplier on Heavy Elven Armor seems really useful. For that class that uses Heavy Armor and relies on Tactical Criticals at level 25. Like, uh …

(Or is my understanding of the combat system THAT off?)

1747

I often find myself scratching my head at some of the armor start bonuses. My fear of losing racial recipes I know is because I finally managed to track down a recipe for heavy iron shoulder pads with a might bonus but they are dwarf-make.* All of the other heavy shoulder pads below level 25 give bonuses to fate or will.

*Okay – I already made a pair each for my champion and my guardian but I worry about other recipes that may suddenly disappear that I might have had use for.

1748

Captiains use heavy armor, and benefit from Tactical crit for heals and damage shouts. Those stats aren’t too unreasonable.

As for matching graphics and stats, there’s always using one for stats, and putting a different graphic in a cosmetic slot.

I’m pretty happy that I won’t have to search out all the dwarf make graphic items anymore.

1749

The way I read is that you’ll not actually lose any known recipes as such, instead of only being able to craft shoulder-pads with a dwarven design (but the same stats as all the other shoulder pads of that level), you can now automatically craft ANY heavy shoulder pad for the level. Then you’ll just choose the one with a Might bonus or the one you think looks nicer. Just like Jewellers now can craft a Sapphire Earring of Vitality, Combat or Evasion (I totally made that one up) in the crafting tab I imagine.

But I can’t figure out how in the hells someone came up with a Tactical Critical Multiplier bonus for lvl 25 Heavy Armor. Is that nice for Captains maybe? Then why the hell put it on the Elf armor, they can’t even be Captains. But why would a Guardian or a Champion want a Tactical bonus? It don’t make sense. Unless I’ve misunderstood the whole combat system.

1750

Anyone can wear elf-make armor, not only elves i think.

1751

Time to hunt some Orc with Legolas then.

1752

Have you tried the Captain class?

1753

Yes. I have tried the Captain class. Yes, any race can wear any armor. I’m sure Captains will be absolutely thrilled, thrilled! with getting shoulder pads with a tactical critical multiplier bonus so their Marks and Shouts now has a higher chance of getting a critical. I’m also positive that this is apparent to anyone playing LOTRO at first glance.

1754

Alright dumb question. I finished up Ered Luin. How do I move on to Bree? Is there a magic gate somewhere?

1755

You can fast travel between all the starter cities from the stable masters in the starter towns - Celondim in this case.

Dunqan

1756

Or go the scenic route, especially your first time. lotro-wiki has maps of all the regions. Head East to The Shire and from there to Breeland. I suspect you will get distracted along the way. I think that’s a good thing.

1757

Seconded.

1758

I am meandering now :) Thanks guys! I am really enjoying the flavor as a Tolkien geek

1759

I think one of my alts one of these days is going to have to be a Hobbit of some sort, to really get a chance to explore the shire. That and I need to do a new Dwarf to see the changes they made up there. So many alts, so little time! Very little interest in making an Elf. I think I’ll get to the level cap with my RK before really putting time into the alt business.

1760

I definitely do like the flavor of the world too. The reason I got DCUO as my first MMO was the superhero theme. But the depth of the world in LOTRO in comparison? Wow.

Just the ability to meander along, see the sights, and look at wild animals running around is so much more rewarding than looking around and seeing skyscrapers everywhere you look. :)