Crafting – Luck of the draw

I wasn’t 100% sure on what to title this.  Basically I’m wanting to address some of the bizarre functions in LOTRO’s crafting.  Overall I enjoy the crafting, albeit somewhat time consuming.  However, the way their crafting works when attempting to crit on a single use recipe is frustrating.

They provide a rough percentage for your chance to crit.  This value is determined by the following :

  • Base crit chance of 5%
  • Crafting Tool (up to 20%)
  • Crafting Lore (up to 12.5% from Supreme Scholars)
  • Crafting Journal (this is the “crit item”, 35%)
  • Crafting Resource (45%; in the case of Metalworking, brimstone)

So, in total there is a 82.5% chance to crit on a single use recipe, or 92.5% chance on normal recipes.  Seems like the odds are in the crafter’s favor, but they really aren’t (at least for the single use recipes).  For some strange reason this percentage doesn’t convey assurance that you will crit on an item.  It’s still 50/50 (which is logical in a sense, I either will or will not crit). The fact that the materials/effort needed to get these conditions can be costly or time consuming should be reason enough to bolster the crafter’s confidence in this crit value.  I’ve had some instances where I’ve failed to crit on all but one piece of a single use recipe set (that’s six recipes).  This is unacceptable. :(

My proposal is to simply switch the critical values of the Crafting Resource and the Crafting Journal.

I know that the other aspect of the crit chance is to help out the game’s economy by making certain crafting gear less abundant.  I also know that much of the gear is easily replaced later on through instances and rep gear.  The main point I’m attempting to hit is the frustration caused by failing to crit with such a high chance at doing so.

- Thrangis

Onto the Sequel!

It has been a rewarding couple of days in LotRO.  I managed to finish Volume 1 of the Book storyline, with the help of my brother.  The buff system they implemented creates an instance easy to solo, so two-manning it was no trouble.  With this hurdle taken down I can return LotRO to a more “casual” play status.  Here’s a screenie of Mordirith blasting Amarthiel/Narmeleth with Nazgul power.

Two days until the Rift beta and I really hope I manage to get on board.  I never did find a VIP key, but I’ll be watching their twitter in case any other opportunities arise before the 3rd.  Overall the game looks interesting.  It has that “familiar” style found in older MMO’s, but I really hope that these similarities won’t cause players to lose sight of some of the game’s finer points.

- Thrangis

Rise of Isengard

This is a bit early to get overly excited for it, but I’m happy to say that Turbine is taking LOTRO to Isengard!  I’m looking forward to getting into some of the more pivotal areas from the books.  Also, the closer I get to Rohan the better!

The expansion is set to be released in Fall of 2011.  Here are the major highlights:

  • Level cap raised to 70 (an extra five levels)
  • New traits/abilities/virtues
  • Revamped monster player (PVMP – Player vs. Monster Play)
    • LOTRO ‘s current PVP scene is rather lacking and difficult to pick up.  The new update is bringing a new zone with it and a “change” to advancement. (I’m curious to see how the changes are going to set the pace for PVMP)

Crafting wasn’t talked about, but I’m assuming there is going to be another tier added.  As it stands Supreme is the highest tier with Master being the next tier down.  So, I’m wondering how, or what rather, they’re going to name this next tier.

On top of this, my Rune-keeper is bursting at the quickslot bars with abilities.  I hope they don’t add any more abilities.  As much as I’d love to see some great new abilities, I have no feasible place to put them.  My suggestion would be to revamp current abilities to either be more powerful or do something extra.  Something that Turbine has already done during the release of Lothlorien and Mirkwood.

- Thrangis

Current Progression Towards F2P

This has been discussed quite frequently across the various lines of MMO communication.  Frankly, many doubt if there will be room for the P2P model to survive in the future of MMO development.  I don’t see it as too much of a problem.  It’s the players who decide how they want to pay for what they’re playing and it’s pretty obvious by the changing standards that F2P (or some variation of it) is what they are signing up for.

Now, I used to be under a somewhat old fashioned mindset and didn’t mind paying a monthly sub for an MMO that I enjoyed.  I believed: by paying a subscription I was insuring that I was getting a quality game with content equally available to the rest of the game’s community.  The only problem I really had was feeling more inclined to play that game over others because I was consistently paying to partake of the game.  With the current change in many older sub based games to the F2P model I’m able to casually enjoy those games whenever I desire.  I am well aware now that a F2P game is perfectly capable of providing the quality I had previously found in the P2P market.

What is it that you prefer about P2P or F2P?  What are you currently playing?

- Thrangis 

A Hobbit’s Haunted Survival Map

When in doubt, trust a hobbit!

While doing some rather questionable requests from the Ale Asosciation I happened upon this.  It would appear that a Hobbit took it upon himself to plot out the best routes through Bilbo’s Haunted Burrow.  This may come in handy later…

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Just a little something to add to the back story of my map. x]

[update]: Silly me, I forgot to include some labels for the rooms… all better now.