Challenge returns to LOTRO

It appears update 14 brought not only Gondor to us, it also brought back the challenge of T2 and T2C instances!

The last couple of years the level of challenge in instances has been reduced, time and time again. It started with RoR, and went completely overboard in HD. This, along with other factors such as the Trait trees, and Turbines decision to not make any traditional instanced group content drove away many people from the game. But with update 14 something happened.

Our tactical mitigation contribution from Vitality had already been removed in an earlier update, but given the difficulty of T2 and T2C stuff, this was probably not something many thought of. And then comes update 14, which has increased the difficulty in instanced group content significantly.

While T1 is still pretty easy, T2 and T2C content has been ramped up so much, that there’s been several topics created around it on the official forums.

This one claims NCF T2 must be bugged and here’s another one claiming that the scaling of raids is ridiculous
And here’s another one claiming inbalance

But there’s not just complints, as even in these threads, people are not only saying that despite the increased difficulty these instances can be completed by a good group, they’re actually showing it. In fact, there’s a thread created for just that purpose! I can’t even remember the last time there was one of those threads on the official forums.

 

There has also been several threads created just to thank Turbine for giving us the challenge back in instances.
Like this one, and this one.

I haven’t had much time to do instances myself since U14, and the ones I have done have been T1’s, but I can’t wait to try out some of the old instances again with the difficulty ramped up. It was so long ago since Lotro had a real challenge, so I will probably suck pretty badly until I get into it again. Just imagine, you might actually have instances where you need stat food, potions, scrolls and hope tokens. Where you actually have to pay attention to interupts and corruptions. Where you might actually wipe your group if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time doing the wrong thing.

After Helms Deep I only levelled up 2 out of my 10 chars at 85 to 95, it just felt like there was absolutely no reason whatsoever to level the rest. Now, I have started to level my alts again, because I just can’t wait to get my hands on these “new” challenges.

Let’s just hope that Turbine doesn’t listen to the few complainers (that probably should stay with the T1 instances) and nerf everything back in to oblivion before I get my chars capped and geared.