Today Jared “Amlug” Hall-Dugas stopped by the Official Discussion forums to discuss these changes and to get feedback from the community.
After reviewing a lot of player feedback and some lengthy internal discussions, we’ve made some significant changes when it comes to killing mobs, and earning XP for it, in LOTRO. With the release of the Riders of Rohan expansion, we will be making the following changes:
Step 1:
We are removing the XP penalty for helping a player who is fighting a tapped mob. Players who ran by and healed a player who was fighting a tapped mob or took a swing at the tapped mob, were hurting the player’s XP by a LOT. Now helping someone will just be a nice thing to do. (Hopefully bringing some more MM back into the landscape portion of our MMO).
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I can’t tell you how long this has been a burden for me in MMO’s. Yes, yes I know it can assist people with power-leveling and such, but so what? Those people are going to power-level anyway; so more power to them. Personally, I’m tired of being yelled at or contemplating whether or not helping someone will result in obscenities or thanks whether I help them or not. It seemed like a no-win situation at times. Now, I can just HELP someone.
Will we see power-leveling spike in the game? Possibly. But considering that if I run into an area where someone is ravaging the landside power-leveling someone I can usually move on another quest hub, go into an instance, go do a skirmish, etc. my irritation doesn’t usually last for very long. (Plus, unless you’re emotionally invested in the other person (and sometimes even if you are) power-leveling someone becomes SUPER BORING for most people after a while.)
I’m also confident that if there are serious issues that Turbine will address them.
Step 2:
We are trivializing the XP that purple (or impossible) mobs give a player. As these are mobs that should be impossible for you to kill anyway this shouldn’t impact the average player much. We’re doing this to help players resist the temptation to tackle mobs well beyond their levels with the ‘help’ of friends due to the changes above.
And thus we see a preventative measure to help curb power-leveling. This is a pretty standard move by game companies, so it’s understandable and justifiable in my opinion.
Step 3:
We are making all the monsters in Rohan use the new open-tapping rules (aka tapping doesn’t exist). If you contribute to killing a monster in Rohan you will get full kill, deed, quest, and XP credit as if you killed the mob solo.
SWEET! This is a brilliant move that I hope that they make server-wide. Why? Because then you don’t have to worry about competing with others for mobs. If you see one, you can kill one; even if someone else is already attacking it. And the best part is you don’t have to worry about who gets credit because you both will. Heck, you might even make new friends instead of playing a game of “who can kill the fastest” when you wander into someone else grinding out a deed or on the same kill quest. My blood pressure thanks you, Turbine.
This should also greatly assist in reducing some of the aggravation players found when doing the intro quests earlier in the Beta where players were all fighting over the same mobs to complete kill quests; which would have likely increased a hundred-fold on launch day.
While only time will tell if this move will truly be beneficial. What do you think?
September 5, 2012 at 5:04 pm
I’m happy about it. I mean, I might possibly be crazy enough to attack a purple mob, but if by some miracle I manage to bring it down, I will be so happy about it that the trivial XP won’t bug me. And it will be great to know that you can help other people without them getting mad at you.
September 5, 2012 at 6:06 pm
I’ve found abuse from helping out varies with the timing of the help.
Too soon and they feel robbed of the glory of the kill. On the other hand if you hold off a bit too long and the only help is a res they can also be a bit miffed, moreso if they saw you watching.
That said I’m more likely to help a lower level player because if it does happen to go pearshaped I’ve a better chance of surviving whereas I find myself more unwilling to through a heal on someone fighting mobs on level with me as more times than I care to remember the recipient runs off leaving me to deal with the angry swarm of mobs they gathered while running about panicking.
September 5, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Yeah, but if I didn’t ask for “help”, I don’t want help. The line, “This is a private fight” comes to mind. I try not to be a jerk about it and this I realize that there’s no way you can know this in-game. Personally, I would much rather people just sent me a tell asking if I need help or if I want to group-up and left it at that.
I always appreciate a rez however.
September 5, 2012 at 9:40 pm
That might be your personal stance – but there are others who expect people to help (but don’t ask for it) and shout abuse afterwards if they don’t receive assistance. From the standpoint of a passer-bye, there might be no clear standard of what is considered acceptable, particularly as people might not reply to tells at all – which I had happen in such situations, even after the fighting was done.
September 6, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Really? I had no idea people expected help but don’t ask. I guess that just show how clueless I am (and that is a genuine comment not sarcasm).
You make an excellent point about the lack of standards Eva. How do we rectify this?
September 6, 2012 at 8:41 pm
If you’re that offended by someone helping you, play a solo game like skyrim where it’s impossible to be helped. This is an MMO and it’s ok for people to randomly help others they come across. There’s nothing in the terms of service against it as long as it’s not repeated so much to be griefing.
*ALL* of the landscape on Rohan will be about helping others around you, the speed dynamic of mounted combat is such it’s impossible to have your own private little bubble to kill mobs.
September 6, 2012 at 10:36 am
The last thing I want in the middle of a desperate fight is to receive a tell. If I need the help, I need my full concentration on keeping alive and reading a tell makes it hard to concentrate on the fight. I’m even less likely to afford to make a response in the midst of combat. After the fight, the question is rather moot.
September 6, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Fair enough Pineleaf you have a point, but I’d view “a desperate fight” as an edge case or the exception. Essentially every time someone jumps in and taps my mobs it’s a trivial fight when I can spare the attention to glance at the chat for half a sec. Heck they’re almost always fights where I could afford to let the mob beat on me while I type a reply. I always seem to get “help” when I’ve got the mob below 10% morale while I’m well over 70% (ie the fight was never close to being in question). No one *ever* offers or jumps in and taps in the reverse situation. I would still prefer people ask first. I can ignore the tell in the extremely unlikely case that someone offers help when things are too tense for me to reply (the correct response in these cases would be to kite the mob to the person sending the tell).
Perhaps just taking a peek at my morale vs the mob’s morale would be enough to know I don’t need help?
I disagree that after the fight the question is moot as I mean “help” in the larger sense (ie form a fellowship and quest together). If it was a fight were I really needed help, then waiting until I’ve been defeated to offer assistance is OK since that mob still needs to die. It’s only moot if I get the mob down.
September 8, 2012 at 4:22 pm
I think it can be based entirely on the players health, personally. Fortunately for my and everyone else on Arkenstone, generally there aren’t enough people around for tapping to be a problem, and you can always send them a fellowship request vs just jumping in. That’s what most of Arkenstone seems to do.
September 10, 2012 at 8:19 pm
I know I’m late to the party but I’d just like to say that a major theme in the Lord of the Rings is the fellowship and the union of disparate races to become more than they were individually in order to defeat a major foe. The hobbits had to learn that the world was a bigger place than just the Shire. Legolas and Gimli learned that elves and dwarves could become as close as brothers. Aragorn had to choose to become the king and save all of Middle Earth. The more the game reflects the spirit of the original material, the better the game will be.
Therefore, I think anything that improves a sense of “together we are stronger” and encourages us to fellow and cooperate is a much better thing than the people who creeb and whinge about how it is wrong of me to do them a favor.
September 5, 2012 at 6:29 pm
Happy to see these changes!! I can’t count the times I have hesitated to heal someone I came across just because I didn’t want to get yelled at for costing them XP!
September 5, 2012 at 6:32 pm
How will this affect group play? It almost seems like you will take an XP and loot penalty for grouping because of Step 3.
September 6, 2012 at 11:02 am
It shouldn’t affect group play whatsoever.
September 8, 2012 at 4:28 pm
I think Bert means compared to just running around not in a fellowship, and he’s right. If you and your friend both got solo XP and the quest/deed advancement, when you’re fellowing you will miss out on half of the XP you could be getting, and I think it will start to show about a 2 weeks after release, because some people who don’t take advantage of this will take twice as long to get to 85.
September 5, 2012 at 6:34 pm
I’ve been one of the grumps when people tap my mobs. I guess I’ll have one less thing to grouse about. I suppose that’s good.
I do try not to be rude about it. I usually assume that the “helper” is just enthusiastic so at most I’ll just send a /tell like, “Thanks, but you know I get a lot less XP when you hit my mobs, right?” or “Thanks, but I’m fine. I don’t need help.”
However, I did log off (/ragequit) last week after being dogged by a burglar that insisted on tapping *everything* I attacked. I was working on learning warden gambits and getting them into muscle memory. I didn’t want help. I didn’t want quick fights. I was trying to learn the mechanics. I sent /tells asking him to leave my mobs alone (he never replied). I attacked different types of mobs (in case he was grinding on a deed). I moved to completely different areas. Still every time I attacked something, the burg popped out of stealth to gank my mob whenever I got its morale down to 50%. I guess he was having fun. I wasn’t.
And yes, I know that most of you will think that I should have just sent him a group invite, but I didn’t feel like rewarding what I consider to be rude behavior.
On a related note, can I still complain about endgame players, usually Champions, that insist on gathering up and killing every single in a zone when I’m trying to do my deeds on-level? I’m not saying you have to give me right-away or anything, I’m not saying it’s wrong that you’re doing a level 15 deed at level 75, just leave me a mob or two while you go on your unsporting killing spree. It’s especially annoying when you insist on running up from behind me to kill mobs in front of me as I’m laying a trap or casting debuffs. It should be obvious that I’m in the middle of attacking that mob despite the lack of “shing-shing”. This happens to me about once a month, sometimes as often as once a week. I really hate it. Thanks.
September 6, 2012 at 3:50 am
the only ways I could see to get rid of that burg would be swift-travel, porting or entering an instance/skirm (and hoping he isn’t waiting for you when you finish (to him it might look like you logged))
I hate people who do that.
think I got yelled at once for healing someone who was at 25% health (against a 50-70% mob or 2)
been waiting for people to get below 10% with a high chance of dying or waiting untill after combat (just mending verse/bolster courage, prelude to hope and most other HoTs last too long)
September 6, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Kanati, sorry you had those bad experiences. What that burg did almost seems to me to be border-line griefing. When I argue it’s ok to “help” someone, I’m thinking of a 1-time save and then moving on. Stealing mobs or “post-tagging” over and over is very bad form. Again, sorry you had to put up with that weirdo and I certainly see where you are coming from now.
September 7, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Thanks mrtoad. If it was just that one burg, I’d write him off as a lone weirdo and move on, but something like that seems to happen to me at least monthly (Landroval), and on some servers (esp Silverload) as often as weekly/daily. I view your sort of drive-by “help” as unwanted, but a minor irritant and nothing really worth getting upset about, or even commenting on. I wouldn’t have commented on this thread if that was all that was happening.
I just wish people would ask before jumping in, but it would be enough if wannabe helpers would simply select me and let my morale get below 30% before tapping.
I have *never* had anyone give or offer help when in I was actually in a close fight. From my perspective, “help” has *always* been given to me in fights which aren’t even in question. I’ll have the mob down to around 10% morale, but still have ~70% of my own morale when someone taps my mob. I wasn’t at risk of defeat, they didn’t get XP, the only result was that I get less XP than I would have otherwise received. Gee thanks. At least healers don’t usually tap since they’d have to select me to heal me and presumably they’d see that my morale was fine.
Even your “one time save” can be a pain because then I feel like I then have waste time trying to figure out what your motive are. Are you being nice? Are you a habitual tapper? Are you griefing me? Do I have to log off for a while in the hope that you’ll get bored move somewhere else?
That’s why I’d much prefer to get a /tell or a post-defeat rez. At least a rez saves me the walk back from the graveyard. A /tell lets me know that you’re trying to help rather than being a jerk. Even if I’m too busy to answer the tell, I at least know where to kite a mob if I need to.
If I read the notes correctly, the change is for Rohan only, so I expect the end result will be that we’ll see more tapping outside of Rohan rather than less.
September 7, 2012 at 9:58 pm
What an ordeal! Again my sympathies. I play exclusively on Landroval and have not seen too much of this, though I only play a single toon (Morforys, a hunter) so I haven’t leveled up for a while. It’s so good to see both sides of the helping argument. I haven’t really “helped” anyone since about 2009 and I last played my old lore-master character
And I’ve probably only helped random strangers a dozen or so times, not a serial helper like these servers seem plagued by now-a-days 
September 5, 2012 at 6:52 pm
I think its a good update, but wont it just encourage folks to tap everything and get full credit for it even if they dont do another move? Just roam around, look for any kind of action, wade in and whack once on everything.
I wonder if they put in place that you have to stay till its dead and contribute x amt of hits etc. … elsewise its just going to be a ‘see who tabs fastest’ thing.
September 6, 2012 at 5:22 am
I really can’t see it being an issue, I just don’t see the player density being high enough to exploit it.
Doing a back of the envelope calculation, killing mobs solo will earn you xp at a rate R. Helping out another player will earn you xp at 2R, as you kill mobs twice as fast. Bouncing around putting 1 hit on a mob someone else is fight will earn you xp at a rate xR, where x is the number of different players mobs you can hit in the time it takes to bring down 1 mob. So there need to be 3 people(including yourself) in a tight area before you even break even. Then factor in that given what I’ve just said its likely if there are multiple people in an area, they will most likely be questing together, making your best bet to just join in.
The only cheesing thing you could do is while riding from x – y hitting every mob you come across for the xp, but its not going to out earn just fighting the mobs yourself.
And all that said, monster xp is still trivial compared to Quest xp.
September 5, 2012 at 7:14 pm
It seems like this will actually take away a reason for grouping, since you don’t have to be grouped to get credit for a group kill. All you have to do is happen by a fight, throw a quick ranged auto attack as you run by and bang, full exp and credit when it falls. It will work to relieve the frustration of competign over mobs for quests int he first few weeks of release, but after that it’s sorta cheap.
September 5, 2012 at 7:31 pm
Grouping was the only major con from this for me…it could take the MM out of MMO just as easily…It will be interesting to see what happens.
September 5, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Yeah-i have already experienced this with a warband. A hunter stood there for a while, shot once, stood there the remainder of the time watching me kill the warband by myself, then ran off
/
September 6, 2012 at 10:42 am
So an XP boost if you are grouped?
5% if you are duo
10% if trio?
That’s been done before as well. In Earth & Beyond as a mechanic to promote grouping.
September 6, 2012 at 11:05 am
That’s a really good idea and something that Turbine should really consider.
September 6, 2012 at 12:42 pm
That is something I’d love to see implemented!
September 6, 2012 at 12:49 pm
No! No xp bonuses! There are only ten levels between 75 and 85, it is not that difficult to get through them without bonuses. I hate forced-bonus. I want to kill things while they are still difficult for me, not race to the end and tower over all. Bonuses if you will, but let me turn them off, please!
September 8, 2012 at 4:40 pm
To make it even, it would have to be 100% with one other player, 200% with two, 300% with three, etc. and only for monster kills. Or, they could do 20% for two, 30% for three, 40% for four, etc and include quests. It would be interesting seeing who would do what with the second.
September 5, 2012 at 7:33 pm
Another situation that comes to mind, with the new auto-looting system, who will get the loot in the cherry-picking situations? That would be the fitting way to describe it when someone is fightign a mob, and someone else runs by with a quick auto attack so they can get full xp and credit, then move along. Willt he money reward be automatically split between everyone who got a hit in on the mob? This could create as many new peeves as it fixes.
September 5, 2012 at 8:12 pm
Yea imagine someone taps in on an easy kill you are working one and scores a lootbox for example.
September 6, 2012 at 5:24 am
Dev quote, “Everyone gets loot off the monster as if they killed that mob solo. So if a mob has a 15% chance to generate a hide, it now has a 15% chance to generate a hide per person.”
September 6, 2012 at 7:59 am
Good, that could have generated some major rage if they didn’t address that.
September 8, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Be prepared for a LOT of tapping-farming.
September 5, 2012 at 8:49 pm
This is the open system Guild Wars 2 is currently using. It actually generates much more cohesive game play as well as a feeling of good will in the community.
As always, there will be those who see this in a negative light. Easy for some to sponge xp and so forth. Oh and let’s argue about loot again, can we? >.<
I simply choose to see it as an opportunity to play the game the way I want to. To help when I can, and ignore when I want to.
Happy Adventuring!
September 6, 2012 at 2:03 am
Even if they are copying another system to some degree, I applaud the breakout from the generic sandbox 100%. Keep it coming, Turbine.
September 10, 2012 at 12:41 pm
The thing I’ve noticed about GW2, though, is that there isn’t really any social interaction going on before/during/after the battles. People just kind of show up at the same place, rip through the mobs and then go their separate ways. Not sure how that is considered “grouping”. I prefer the strategy and interaction provided by LOTRO currently. I hope that this change doesn’t alter that aspect of the game.
September 6, 2012 at 8:45 am
>> Now, I can just HELP someone.
You’re not helping if the person doesn’t want the help–except perhaps for helping yourself.
If the system rewards the tapper for open tapping, then people will tap for their own benefit without any regard for what other players want. This is poised to be the new “forced emote” religious war given the same underlying social issues exist.
It would be better to just remove the XP penalty on the combat initiator. That way, nobody gets penalized if you “help”, but you don’t have an economic incentive to tap-and-go.
September 6, 2012 at 9:31 am
Well what your suggesting is what they are doing lv 1-75 zones.
The only reason I can see now for actively not wanting someone to help is if you are trying to see if you can solo something, where I would guess it would be a little annoying.
But to be honest, I find it much more irritating in high population zones where you need to kill mobs for a quest, but they’re all dead. Playing in Beta before the open tapping was introduced, it could take 30min+ to do a 5 minute quest as everyone scrambled for the mobs. Just sharing the mobs seems much more sensible.
September 6, 2012 at 11:22 am
Too little too late, they should revamp all of the Eriador areas if they want to hold on to new-coming players because frankly the game is absolutely awful and grindy until you reach Moria (with the exception of Evendim which was actually revamped. Now with GW2 showing off it’s superb innovations Lotro is looking and feeling so outdated and clunky to new players it’s just not worth touching, (I wouldn’t if today was the first time I picked it up). There are countless people in the MMO and gaming community think Lotro is a terrible game, have heard this from a friend or review who only played until lvl30 and gave up. Please make the early game ‘amazing’ you’re losing a lot of potential players who put down one of the best MMO’s before they realise how great it is; not just for Lord of the Rings fans.
September 7, 2012 at 9:46 am
I think the early levels are fine. I’m not sue what “grindy” means anymore, but normal questign and levelign isn’t it. More of the early zones could use a revamp to make things interesting for those with alts, but other than that it’s fine. I personally prefer the old school questing style in MMOs over ones that are so different they don’t even feel like an MMO. Now that I think about it, the North Downs and Trollshaws are the only early zones that haven’t already been revamped.
September 8, 2012 at 1:41 pm
We shall see. I do not have enough fingers to count the number of ‘LOTRO Killers’ people have proclaimed over the years. They come and go yet LOTRO is still around.
I personally expect LOTRO to survive just fine. When the game finally does end, it will likely be because people have slowly drifted off as opposed to a new ‘Killer Game’.
September 6, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Hmm, regarding those who don’t want help, perhaps Turbine can add a “HelpMe” flag similar to the roleplaying flag, so that when you cursor over the player it shows at a glance whether someone is receptive to help. Also, make it so that the flag can be changed with a keystroke combo. Sure it’s still not ideal (another thing to click/toggle while you’re dying in battle, but easier to deal with than a tell), but it might help.
September 6, 2012 at 12:50 pm
This.
September 6, 2012 at 3:29 pm
Seconded. That’s a really good idea.
September 8, 2012 at 4:45 pm
Or, an option to have it automatically turn in, only in combat, when you are under x% health. when you die or kill the mob, it would go away.
September 6, 2012 at 12:51 pm
“Step 2:
We are trivializing the XP that purple (or impossible) mobs give a player. As these are mobs that should be impossible for you to kill anyway this shouldn’t impact the average player much. We’re doing this to help players resist the temptation to tackle mobs well beyond their levels with the ‘help’ of friends due to the changes above.”
…Sadface, but okay. One of the best times I had was charging into Enedwaith as a warden with my minstrel friend at level 50, and we took on a level 65 half-orc and beat it dead. Definitely purple.
September 6, 2012 at 3:44 pm
Well, there’s no reason you can’t keep doing that for the fun of it. You just won’t get XP.
September 6, 2012 at 6:04 pm
I frankly dont understand why they would gimp power levelers by reducing the exp gained on high lvl mobs won with high lvl friends. I bet those players are the ones paying out the nose for exp tokens, deed boosters etc. Oh wait, i think i just answered my own qstn. if they gimp power lvling, then sales should increase for the store items. doh.
September 7, 2012 at 9:39 am
This should make things interesting with stuff like Limlight dailies. You won’t really need to form a fellowship, you could conceivably just have a pack of 15 players running through the place together killing things and everyone getting credit. But I wonder how this will work with the task items that give you LL rep, the branches and heartwood. Does everyone who helped kill a tree get a branch, or will there be 15 people rolling on it? Still some unanswered questions.
September 7, 2012 at 3:15 pm
The Open Tapping applies only to Rohan… it will have no impact on the Limilight Gorge dailies.
September 9, 2012 at 12:39 pm
First off, I was surprised to read comments about it only being for the Rohan region, and that all previous zones are unaffected by the change – that seems really strange to me. Its also a shame these changes are about 2+ years late, but better late than never…
Secondly, I remember one time where a group of two players fought a mob in Angmar while I stood by afk, from which they both then died and proceeded to submit a torrent of abuse to me for not helping, which left me fuming. Likewise, Ive had situations where I have helped out someone who was looking like they were about to go down in a fight only to receive abuse in the form of ‘thanks for ruining the xp, idiot’. After this, if I see a fight in progress that looks like it could go either way, I just steer well clear and keep moving. If you stood by and watched, you were going to end up getting abuse which ever course of action you chose with some players. Fortunately not anymore… unless they now decide to report you as a ‘tapping-farmer’..
September 10, 2012 at 12:34 pm
Yeah, I’m one of those dummies that didn’t even realize there was a tapping penalty until I started watching the Rohan diaries. So for about 17 months I’ve been going around unintentionally robbing people of XP thinking I was just helping out. Kinda wish someone would have sent me a tell to educate me…
So – here is my official apology to all of Windofola. Sorry if I griefed you!
September 10, 2012 at 12:57 pm
Yup, me too. It is just this post that informed me of this. And I started in 2010…
September 14, 2012 at 12:52 pm
Absolutely love 1 & 2 and my apologies also to Arkenstone if I griefed you because I also had no idea that I ruined the xp for people if I helped them until this post! Although, I tried to never help someone unless it looked like they weren’t handling well (would check player vs monster morale) and I’ve never had someone yell at me but no one educated me about this either. As for 3, I’m not so sure about it. As others have said, sounds like people are just going to throw one shot at everything someone else is killing and get full xp, loot and all. Bad for the economy it seems and there will be no reason to group up anymore. I understand the frustration of not being able to find the mobs needed for a quest because everyone is killing them but they should address this issue by upping the spawn rate and people should group more! But, I guess we’ll see how it works out, I’m glad they aren’t doing it server wide at first, use Rohan as a testbed for it. The help flag sounds like a good idea.