LEAVE A COMMENT - are you for or against a level squish in Lord of the Rings Online??

I think the mid-game is LORTO's biggest issue. There's a lot of interesting content and quests that involve dungeons and instances that no one plays. They need to make this particular content soloable so that we can experience without other players. Otherwise, a lot of the mid-game content is not used. The health of an MMO, imo, is not how people are at end game or even how many new players there are--but how many players are in the mid-game.

While there are some clear benefits to a level squish, especially for newer players getting to the endgame quicker (which can, however, be addressed with a Valar), there are several major issues, imo: 1) it makes a lot of the content "optional" or something you can completely bypass, because there will just be way too many zones for a lower level range. Players already skip and outlevel lots of zones, and have to resort to pausing their XP gain to do content, which would mean they'd be stuck at a level band for far, far longer (which isn't fun, because we all like progression, or the feeling of progression); 2) to address this, XP gain may be dramatically reduced, but this just slows down the entire experience, which means each level takes a lot longer to get (which doesn't feel good -- again, we like progression); 3) As it stands, when you outlevel a zone, the mobs become grey to you and don't attack you. This makes later questing, hunting for resources, and deeding, or even just traversing the landscape, a lot more pain-free. Squishing the levels, however, would mean a lot of those zones you "outlevelled" are now back in your level range, and all those mobs are no longer grey. That will make a lot of things, especially deeding, much more tedious. While some people like what GW2 has, for example, where you're levelled down to a zone so it's always a challenge, I found it annoying to have to kill mobs every few seconds along my path to do something simple or get somewhere, even if I'd already completed that zone. It's one of the things I like about LOTRO's approach to zones you've outleveled, so a squish is a major problem for this. I'm sure there are potential ways to address at least some of these issues I've raised, but I think they should be fully considered (along with other issues) before a level squish is ever put on the table.

This game has always been more about experiencing the story line and being in Middle Earth than it has been about raids, and that is the right approach. If a level squish would still preserve the feeling of the world and the character interactions, then it might not be a bad thing but please, PLEASE don't sacrifice the story for gamers that just want to race to max level and raid, raid, raid. This isn't that kind of game. It's more about the journey than the endgame.

I'm a solo player. I don't do dungeons. Until my vision became poor ( i'm 73). I played every day. I have 7 characters at around level 110. And yes I'd like to the new zones and play there, but I no longer buy expansions. I'd love to have new armor for my Guardian!

I think all instances should have a big battle mode that make all players the same level with no participation cap. Whether it's 2 people or the whole server. No prequalify needed. No fellowship required, although certainly preferred.

I guess I look at it a bit differently, because I don't care about levels or how many levels there are. I love the world and I'm more concerned with "I made it all the way through Moria" rather than "I finally hit level 60!", especially because, unless you use some kind of level-up stopper, you can very easily overpower your character. The group content trough between level 70 and 115 has to do with the evolution of the game. After the game went Free to Play (right about when the Mirkwood expansion came out) the developers already noticed that players were mostly playing the game solo and avoiding the group content. Also, they had such a steady schedule of updates, and the group content (which had been designed to be "end game" at that particular time) would be outmoded before most players would actually play it. Certainly before they could play the instances over and over and over and over and over again enough to get all the super best ever gear, before you could get something better on your first quest in the new expansion area. So the group content with Rise of Rohan and Wildermore were basically group mounted combat quests on bad guys that weren't in dungeons, but were romping around on the map. Mounted combat still isn't that great a system, but the dungeon-less group bad guys appeared to hit well enough that they did it when the level cap hit 100 (unmounted roving threats to hunt down). They tried to re-introduce group content with the "Epic Battle" system when Helm's deep came out, and there are a lot of people who didn't like the system very much, I don't mind them (I still play them rather than the short-cuts they've introduced because of how little people like them. I think it because epic battle instances are like playing a different game.) They got back to dungeon-based end game content with Mordor, and it's featured heavily in every new area since, because, apparently most of the players still playing LOTRO do like playing the same end-game raid over and over and over and over . . . (and a year of "and over"). It's apparently popular enough, they've added dungeons to the festivals. You can sense my own bias here - I don't play LOTRO so I can re-run the same end game instance 9,000 times, with the only difference being that this time it's the Warden instead of the Captain who is the "You guys all suck at this game and should uninstall because you didn't let me totally usurp leadership from the raid leader and do everything exactly the way I say!" player - I play it so I can run through the world and the story. To me it's like picking up your favorite novel, just so you can read only the last chapter over and over and over . . . I'd almost prefer some sort of level-less system, if they could find a way to do it that would still be able to make it impossible for you to just run straight to the the end of the story from the begining.

Very thought provoking video; great job!!! I was one of the anti-squish voters on your poll. After watching, I think I'm gravitating more to the middle. For me, I'm not an end game content consumer and I'm not a PvP person. I love the journey through the content and building up my toons. I agree, a middle ground would be ideal. My idea would be to have a potion of the Valar that would either: 1) auto level a new player to end game content or , 2) have a potion that will temporarily grant the player end game content access. That way, if they REALLY just wan to play end game, they can. For us that are on the journey, the leveling we've dedicated to the game is preserved. That said, your Pros for a Squish are very intriguing and I didn't really think about before. You are spot on, the top two things ALL LotRO players MUST be focused on is retention and growth. Otherwise, we'll lose our beloved game.

Another BANGER brightlife vid, Thank you for the upload Brightbroski

Really glad to see you back making videos! I must say I am between Level Squish yes or no, because on one side I really like to get the sense of progression and seeing how much is still up for you to go. On the other side I must say that I feel like that Squish would also help to revive old content naturally. No matter what the developers will do with it, I am sure that I will be happy either way :D

Kinship conversation last night went exactly like this..... "What's the best way to level in this game?" A couple kins people replied with the usual... questing, advancement potions, Zone so and so.... then one absolute brilliant reply was sent to the chat....... "This game isn't about the level its about the story and lore. There are too many paths through story that reward you well with experience, enjoy the story." I don't think that reaching max level should be your goal if you decide to undertake the journey, but rather walking through an awesome story and being rewarded through that enjoyment. Plus straight up... LOTRO players seem to be a lot nicer then in other MMO's. No Haters... mostly.

Personally, I agree with you that if we do get a level squish, the journey absolutely MUST still feel significant. If it doesn't, I fear that a level squish might make player numbers fall even more. I think that it might be a good thing, but am very hesitant because of the way that LOTRO works. Can they balance making it easier for new people while still keeping LOTRO feeling like itself? I'm not sure, as that's quite a tall ask.

Level squish is a good idea to help bring new players is because 140 is bit much. I think 60 to 80 is a good area

The level squish for WoW was the transition between Battle for Azeroth (Max Level 120) to SHadowlands (Max Level 60). And it helped.

If lotro does a level squish, that will be the death knell for me, I personally like seeing a lot of the zones. With a squish it will be like current wow and you only see 5 areas maybe and boom max, I hope this doesn’t happen.

There’s an issue when talking about level squishing with LotRO, and it’s that so many people play solo while leveling, or exclusively with a small group of friends. For these players, the journey might be diminished, but for players like me who dislike solo MMO play and prefer to be grouping as much as possible, I think the squish opens up tons of possibilities. More dungeon options per level, more options for areas to level in for each level bracket, and generally being closer to everyone around you as far as player power goes. I think a squish incentivizes grouping and social activity in the leveling process, and does ultimately bring players closer to group based high level content more quickly. I’m definitely in the pro-squish camp. It’s a great opportunity to make lower level content more lucrative and provide a wider variety of options for everyone to partake in together.

Considering that squishing all this content and work that has been put in to the game the devs wouldn’t try to significantly decrease the level cap in lotro. What I think is that they are focusing more on the Levels after 100 where the stats skyrocket. They would probably make the Level cap something like 100 or 110 and make the stats more manageable. But that’s just my take on things. Great video 👍🏻

I'm ambivalent about a level squish in LotRO (I can see it both being good and bad) but it's interesting to compare your poll to the LotRO forums, where it seems almost everybody is adamantly, painfully, and vocally against it.

My ideal implementation of a level squish would be changing the levels of existing zones so they can act as alternative ways of leveling for the same level range. This is already done for lower levels where lvl 20-30 can be done either with Lone-Lands, North-Downs or Cardolan and lvl 30-40 with North-Downs, Evendim and Trollshaws, for example. Continuing along this line, book volumes 2 and 3 could be alternative ways of reaching level 65, with Eregion acting as the perfect crossroads between Enedwaith and Moria, the first new zones you quest in with volume 3 and 2 respectively. That way you would have either Moria-Lothlorien-Mirkwood or Enedwaith-Dunland for leveling 50-65, as opposed to potentially doing all of these in order to reach lvl 75. Taking this even further, Great River-East Rohan and Wildermore-West Rohan respectively could be alternative ways of leveling 65-75. edit: I probably missed a few of the new zones in the 20-40 range since I recently started playing again.

I should also add that LOTRO has rarely added just 5 levels in expansions (or free updates), and those have typically been some of the more underwhelming additions. Like it or not, but players like bigger numbers. You feel like you're progressing more, and you get more points for your trait trees, etc. Having those level-up dings more frequently is very satisfying. If we got a level squish, you'd have a lot fewer of those, and be waiting much longer between them. Of course, they could take a leaf out of DDO's book and have sub-levels in the form of pips, but that would be a major change to the game. Again, all of these things need to be thought through.

I think lag and visuals are the biggest bars to new players. Level squish would be cool but isn't going to bring me back. The problem is not enough people play anymore and lag or the visuals turn people away the most over a high level. If I really think about why 140 seems high it's because I'm wondering if the game will be there when I make it/ will I be playing virtually alone.

Level Squish is something that varies for Feedback. There is more Public Feedback to NOT have a Level Squish. If you look at this Video itself, there are more comments for a Level Squish because this is the central topic for the Video and has a bigger reason for those who want such especially as the KZfaqr in question is someone who Publicly wants a Level Squish & their Viewers know they want such. A Level Squish also hits this huge roadblock if it's still being considered: There is no clear & cut way that those who are leaning towards a Level Squish to happen for the "How" of it. There is no clear idea for what the New Level would be, how fast Leveling should be, some think Level Scaling should be added into a Level Squish as well & would be a whole other dynamic, Epic Quests should be the "main way to Level" and a lot of other factors. There are those who want LOTRO to become like other MMOs and focus more on the "Race to Endgame" which that is NOT what LOTRO is about. Then those people who want the Level Process faster would also like to see lots of the Content which is just "repetitive" to be removed. This is the Kill X, Fetch, Escort, and so on Quests that can be found in many Regions of LOTRO. Just a general departure from what makes LOTRO, LOTRO. Even if a Level Squish gets considered in 2024 or beyond, it'll be a Multi-Year Project which likely would require a Multi-Year Legendary Server VIP Testing before finally being added to the Live Game. It could easily take closer to 5 Years for a Level Squish to truly happen, especially one that is done well. Which that would be my biggest concern is if they didn't take a long time to make it good, it would come out bad & hurt the Game far more than not messing with it.

I played LOTRO since SoA. I remember being in the moors with my hunter at level 50.. and spending countless hours in raids, PvMP, leveling etc. Having this said.. I stopped playing really actively with the level 75 cap ( and came back again for the 115cap). Openly saying, the way back now to level cap is a nightmare. Not speaking about starting from scratch. I agree to Brightlife and I always thought a squish would be great. Or at least (and here I would be all in) a similiar event like at SWTOR. -> So basically adding enough XP to the book quests to reach cap. They offer anyway the best experience and openly saying I would love to avoid the standard quests of "kill X enemies", "collect 10 pieces of wood" and "kill the boss".

If LOTRO did a level squish then they would also need to make XP take longer to acquire, because the fact is that a big problem with LOTRO is that you very easily outlevel content.

As a newer, more casual player, i think a level squish would be exciting for me and im sure help bring in new players. A big reason i was so hesitant to join in, was the massive hill to climb that was leveling. That said, because im new, my opinion shouldnt hold much weight. I dont know enough about the game to demand major changes, if the dedicated players think its a bad idea, i would side with them. Games need new players, but the dedicated backbone of the community is what has kept the game afloat all this time, not new players. They have put a lot of effort into making the journey more meaningful recently. From rescaling power and resource costs, to adding new difficulty options to overland content, as well as the mention of a stat squish. I think a level squish would be in line with these ideas, but the changes have been substantial regardless and im excited either way.

Now to the benefits of a level squish: 1) less daunting to new/returning players (even if it took the same amount of time to get to half the current cap -- perception is as important as reality in a gamer's experience); 2) potentially quicker to get to endgame (though not necessarily so if the process is slowed down considerably); 3) more options for zones to level through at each level bracket (though there are currently plenty of those in a lot of level ranges); 4) more players at any given level, which might make the world feel more populated, and may make grouping easier; 5) fewer levels for devs to worry about in terms of maintenance (though this may also present challenges for balance, and would require a monumental investment of dev time to get right).

I still have an ancient 'lifetime subscription' account from the launch of the game. These changes might lure me back in for a while. :)

For group content, I think there should just be level scaling, so that you can jump in as long as you reached the minimum level for a specific content. Look at the "roulette" in FF14. Although for the type of scaling I would prefer the GW2 version of it (squishing the numbers - not taking away abilities). Bedies of that I just think speeding up the leveling instead of actually squishing might be a better idea. Also maybe don't raise the level cap, instead consider introducing some horizontal progression systems. You can still have the gear level rising, and require quests to be done for some type of content, but it would just stop further level inflation.

I miss this game and my old guild on Windfola. This makes me want to start playing again. I don't remember my main toon's level right now, but I wouldn't mind a level squish. I may even start a new toon if they did that.

I would want just max level 70 and then have a Champion Point System with Stat Buffs similar to ESO just change the system up a bit. Something like that maybe.

I guess it's the fact that I've played the game since before Rohan came out, but I don't mind or care about how many levels there are. I enjoy the quests and exploration, even in places I've seen multiple times. If they do a level squish, okay. If they don't, okay. If there was anything I was going to tell new players it would be don't worry about the numbers because it's really easy to level up, even for non-VIP characters. And if anyone wants a tour guide for Moria, I might know the majority of it like the back of my hand. :D

Something to consider... kind of as a thought experiment that might illuminate the issues involved: consider how long it would take to complete the Epic Quest Lines if you bought a level-cap boost on day 1. Even at (current level cap) 140, plowing through lower-level quests like a bulldozer, it would take a loooong time to get to Mordor (nevermind post-Mordor Gundabad or Gondor Renewed).

I love the idea of a level squish however the journey is very important in Lotro more so than most MMOs, I do wish they would streamline a lot of the questing with a level squish as it feels like there is so many filler quests in the game and it takes the fun out of the journey at times. I don't need to travel back and forth 12 times to the same NPCs just because the person said that, or 3 back to back quests to kills 5 orcs because they was not loud enough.

I would personally love it if they went the GW2 route in that the new content was story and not leveling grind. Cap the levels at 50 which you end up hitting in the original end game content and then all new expansions would simply open new areas, monsters, lore, and content. I absolutely detested the fact that in WOW all my awesome gear, stats, and crafting efforts became worthless with each new expansion. I understand some (I guess most) players want the constant refresh that offers but GW2’s success suggests there are a lot that prefer story related releases. And with lotro being such a massive lore source I feel it would be a perfect fit for a GW2 level cap with story releases.

I tend to focus less on level and more on zone (the journey). So perhaps I already mentally squish the levels by a factor of 10 (e.g., Shire, Bree, North Downs, etc. are each ~10 levels). I do miss the more distinct gaining of skills that you get in the lower levels. After a certain point, the trait points act more like buffs, especially off the main line, than that experience of gaining a new skill. At times, I also miss the having to go to the trainer for your class after you leveled. That also helped add significance to the leveling process. One thing that I do think that would change a lot from a level squish would be armor and weapons. If you think the range of weapons over 10 levels is fairly significant. Perhaps this could be addressed by using essences further down the levels (even to current levels 10-20) in order to differentiate weapons/armor. So quests could grant essences rather than new armor along the journey. There would be a lot of work to tweak how those come into play as well as difficulty in PvE that currently have more levels to fine tune difficulty.

Great video, but two things about WoW: The level squish happened from Battle for Azeroth to Shadowlands & the current level cap in Dragonflight is 70, not 60.

I think a level squish would be difficult to manage. On one hand I'd love to see the levels decrease, but I love the long journey to max level, except I don't like the idea of entering Moria before level 50 because it just feels strange for Angmar raids before 50. I've never liked seeing health numbers beyond 30k in anything, I loved watching my dad and older brother as a kid run around in SOA doing PvP and PVE content and seeing an Elf Hunter managing to squeeze out 4k HP or something was just cool, but even cooler when you one-shot them while playing a Black Arrow. More meaningful numbers rather than giant leaps in power. Maybe if some zones were lowered so there were multiple paths to choose at certain levels where usually it's just one so you might not HAVE to do Moria you could head South through Enedwaith, you won't HAVE to go to Rohan you could continue in Mirkwood. Granted there would be the issue of book quests not really making sense there or something with time but it would be cool to have the option to not follow the path of the Fellowship

As a new player to LOTRO, but veteran MMO player in general (played MMOs since early 2000s), while I would love a level squish, the reason I gave up on LOTRO is the lag. I'm from EU and it's bad enough that I won't play the game, even though I really enjoyed it.

There is no planned level squish. It's a stat squish coming. Cord said last week on stream there are no plans to squish levels, in fact there is a level increase coming very shortly to 150.

Whenever I play the game, I just want to quest myself through middleearth. I don't really care about levels and even use the xp gain stop item whenever I get 6 levels ahead of the zone I'm in. Level squish could be good, but don't ruin my walkthrough of Eriador.. Tried out WoW because I wanted to play the whole story and it was way too complicated.

If they squish all the content accordingly to go along with the level-squish then it will deffinitely help the game. I never stuck with LOTRO because of all the other distractions, not because of the level-cap

I just want to play on the Evil side. Like as a full faction with it's own leveling. Not just the PvP. Team Mordor let's gooooo

100% for a level squish

squish. i used to play and loved it. all the way to 60. im not coming back to go another 80 levels. trust me 60 was painful enough.

When we were doing Rift at main server cap at 50 my MT had just over 4k morale. You don't even clear the Seer's room because damage output is huge in comparison now. It is a stat squish they are considering, not a level one. Maybe it will give rift it's former status back and not the pretence of an achievement.

I've never played LOTRO, but I've been thinking about it recently (that's why I'm watching LOTRO videos). I am against a level squish because it relegates the entire game except for the "endgame" to a meaningless mandatory grind that is in the way to "the real game" (endgame). I've been thinking of playing the game because I want the long journey, not the endgame activities. Just my point of view. If they are going to do it I suggest they squish it to 50 normal levels (the ones you need to get into the endgame activities) and every level after that all the way to 140 or w/e the cap is would be "paragon" levels. This way the level requirement for those who want to get into endgame group activities can do so after a relatively short journey and those of us who want to keep slowly grinding to max level through questing and following the story have something to look forward to for staying on the journey. Those who do not want "the long journey" can get their "paragon" levels by doing the endgame stuff. Everybody wins!

I think they could speed up the journey without compromising the feeling. Borrow from FF XIV a bit and have 2 viable ways to level. 1: Tune xp to where just following the epic quest alone can get you there 2: For a faster option, do more of the other quests, but have them give less experience due to their bulk nature. This would give players the choice of story or speed, where today you almost need to do both to completion. P.S. XIV level cap is 90 and those midgame levels are weird for their original endgames in LotRO at 75, 85, 95, 100, 105, 115 befor going back to every 10 at 120

I think a 'downscaling' system would be more useful and more attainable. Part of the reason there's a grouping gap in the midgame is that there are mostly no relevant rewards for overleveled characters and that there are some players who do not want to run lower-level content while overleveled or with overleveled teammates. A larger player population in general would also help, 'cause then there'd be more characters at different levels to potentially group with. My concern with a level squish is that it will render a lot of the existing side content useless. If it is to happen, I'm thinking they could do something like add a barterable currency to all side content as a reward which you could then exchange for valuable rewards relevant to your level and rewards that are level-agnostic, including cosmetics and whatnot. This essentially turns side content into horizontal progression. Or maybe they could make it so that the Epic is enough to get you the levels alone, but most gear are locked behind side content lol or, alternatively, crafted yourself or bought from other players if you don't wanna do the work. Or they could do a fake level squish where the visible number is cut in half but you still level the same number of times, like maybe you would level up twice or thrice but you only see your level number go up every two or so levels. 😆 The game stays at is but new players are tricked into thinking there are only 70+ levels, haha. Any of that needs a lot of work, still.

In order to make a level squish work, there would also need to be a crafting rework to make the crafted gear balance with the new levels, but still keep the tiers separate and meaningful. That may be an easy fix, or maybe not, but it would need to be addressed.

Full support for a level squish

I played LOTRO for about 11 years before I started getting burn out. And as someone who often thinks about coming back, this huge level disparity really inhibits my desire to continue.

Ima start a new toon to lvl for the squish

I agree that 140 may be a bit daunting for new players or simply to take the decission to level alts. I would not squish that much as WoW did, but level 80 or 90 would feel like accomplishing something ;) (I don't dig the level 60 squish, it's too much imo). It's true that Lotro is all about the journey, if the devs find the way to make mid levels more rewarding and make the cap level a bit smaller, that would be a win win situation.

Honestly, I think a level squish down to around 100, with everything scaling roughly in proportion would be great. We are going to be at level 150 this year, and I can't think of another western game that is THAT high; even WoW had to hit the breaks around 120 (which we hit in LOTRO half a decade ago iirc). While the journey in LOTRO is great, there are certainly point where I've just been bored with a zone that I'm like 3/4 of the way through and end up feeling like I'm just doing busy work to get myself into a new area that I feel excited about (hell, if I could just zip through Moria as a whole, I would). And I think 100 is a good point for a few reasons. 1: It is a really comprehensible number, everyone can easily grasp how far along they are when they're level is essentially a percentage point, and every level or two will feel more significant because of it. 2: As it is now, 100 is just before the stats start going crazy, I think my guard was still below 50k morale at that point. And lastly, honestly, I think you could drop a third of everything without losing much. I have a level 54 with hundreds of hours already, and I was just questing and skirming on her. And, as an added bonus, this makes the game more replayable imo, since that means more quests you can do on a new character that you would outlevel otherwise.

level squish could work if they did a level scaling with all zones would work out for the aged of the game.

I've been playing lotro for 13 years I have 10+ characters at cap and some at level 1-50 and I love that the game makes it so fun and enjoyable for everyone for a raider or for when I feel like relaxing and questing on my lower level alts. And I personally love the idea that I have so many levels to go that I have so much to explore, zones that I still haven't even explored and wouldn't the players that enjoy the journey and questing and reading all the text and exploring not benefit from a large squish when they are the majority voting for one. I don't understand why you'd want to shorten this period, if you really love that about the game then it shouldn't matter it just means you have more content and more levels to explore and quest. I get the concern for new players as a very high level cap can seem daunting but maybe making the valars a little cheaper or increasing the xp reward from quests and mobs?

I don't care one way or the other. But I don't worry about level when I play. To me this game is so much more than a leveling game. It's a story. An epic. It doesn't care what level you are. The game, like Tolkien's tale, is all about the journey.

I'd be a fan of a level squish. I think leveling takes way too long. That said, the devs and player base are so invested in the story that I'm not sure any level squish would truly result in a quicker leveling experience. I'm cool with or without it :)

In a vacuum, I absolutely am in favour of a level squish along with a stat squish. I think that something like that could do wonders for the game bringing in new players. However. None of the following is meant as a criticism of SSG, this is largely a result of the current dev team playing the cards dealt to them by previous teams and devs over the years. As you brought up, there are two really big considerations that have to be thought of, in terms of technical requirements and approaches. Developer Hours, and Scaling systems. Dev hours, we already know that Lotro has been in something of a spaghetti code scenario for ages now. Pull on a thread to change one thing, and something else from a decade back breaks unexpectedly. And the person who knows how that was coded in, why, and where all it's been integrated was from 2 dev teams back. So nearly every change has to be over-vetted against the jenga tower that is Lotro. Any dev hours for something like this, the total investment on a small team is *way* more than would be expected. And scaling... oh boy, scaling in Lotro. Scaling would almost have to be implemented in some fashion either just in the math of cutting down levels and the appropriate content, or a real attempt at scaling broader zones down into a range to fit the new player level ranges and their associated power. If you've been here for a while, say around the Helm's Deep days, then you may well know who well the Lotro engine and systems currently handle scaling. They, uh.... they don't. Really, really don't. Play over or under 100 in Big Battles (or by all accounts, go to the Moors under-leveled and get scaled up) and see how well the engine and systems handle you being more than a couple of levels off. There would need to be a fundamental reworking of how scaling is handled by the system and fits within a workable range, rather than the math just breaking down and melting into slag. And, to really do that well and allow zones to be re-scaled for new level ranges... see Dev hours above. I'd love to see it. One of my other long-time favourite MMOs, ESO, implemented scaling and broke away from rigid vertical progression with One Tamriel, and it was the single best thing that happened for the population and player base of the game. But, that was a larger studio, with backing, and a game that did not yet have a decade and a half of progression to undo and coding to unearth. SSG would have their work more than cut out for them with something like this, and I just can't suggest something that I feel sets a team (with the limitations they face) up to fail.

Not a big deal but I’d like to add a small correction. WoW squished the levels in Shadowlands. Dragonflights current level cap is actually 70. But either way the video is still solid, and personally I think a stat squish and a level squish would be really healthy for the game.

your take 10/10

Level squish - Undecided since I'm not really sure what that means for the individual characters. I'm not what I would consider "a gamer" but I do enjoy questing around Middle Earth, crafting, a bit of role play, and marveling at the scenery. I have played for over 6 years, 100's of characters of all classes and races. I have only ever really gotten into dungeons on Ithil when I was in a kinship that stayed at level 50 for 6 months and did lots of Rift and Moria raids. I don't think like the average gamer and struggle with hand/eye coordination when it comes to mechanics. I have a slower computer than most so I end up getting left behind a lot, making random teams not work well for me. Too often, random teams are too picky about class, traits tree, and gear to include everyone. What will a level squish do to help that (if anything)? I used to do random groups for the turtle in Moria (because such a large group was needed) and I'd only be halfway thru the fight when everyone else was done and looting the chest, which meant I wouldn't get any loot. Another concern with a level squish is what will it do to the character that I have spent a lot of time learning how to play. Will it change the mechanics of how they fight? I am not a "stat" player so I assign gear and skills based on MY playstyle learned from doing, not reading stats. If a level squish will not require me to start from scratch to relearn 6 years of playing, I'm all for it because at the rate I play, I will never see end game anyway, which means never getting to experience what everyone else does when everyone else is doing it. One could say to use a valar, but my issue with that is all the quests it drops in your log that you cannot get rid of and the fact that now you have what feels like a half developed character that you have to do a lot of catch up and backtrackign with. A lot of the quest details list different location names that what is actually on the map and unless you know where these places are, you cannot complete the quests. I would love to see a more achievable end game without cheating/skipping everything that prepares you for it.

Can you try echoes of angmar, lotro classic private server?

Definitely against. Whenever I hear “make the game more accessible” it always ends up meaning dumb it down so that that one can quickly get to the end of game. For a game that is more about the journey this would be a terrible idea and LOTRO would no longer feel as epic as it does now. For those obsessed with rushing through the content give them level skips but don’t ruin the game itself. Sadly I think there will be a level squish and it will turn out to be a journey squish as well and that will be that.

Part of your "Pro 3" is the reason I support a level squish. When you level up, especially in the higher levels, and find you didn't gain a new ability or a new trait point it begs the question what the point of the level was. They can adjust the xp per level to make the whole experience take as long as it does now or they can make it slightly quicker, but I'd just love for each level to add something significant (even if just a trait point) to build my character with.

We don't need a system that rushes to endgame. We need a system that makes the leveling progression feel meaningful and fun. As long as the leveling progression is meaningful and long, I don't care how many levels there are. Being able to go through multiple zones while leveling is amazing, unlike WoW where you outlevel every single zone you ever attempt.

Tried this game but, no one would communicate with me to help me out and it was kinda difficult to play actually. I felt like I was by myself playing the game. Agreed it seemed fun to play

I like your videos and your enthusiasm for LOTRO! But the title here is either purposeful clickbait or you were misinformed. There is no level squish planned. Definitively. There is a STAT squish planned, the primary effect is going to just be to make the numbers smaller (for example: 1,000,000 Morale might become 100,000 Morale) but the relative effects and power levels are expected to remain the same. I actually hope the stat squish will do a bit more than that because there are very large up-bumps in Morale and outgoing damage and gear stats at certain levels which correspond with old expansion release points. Maybe that was useful at the time those expansions were released because it obsolesced gear and encouraged people to play in the new areas and obtain the new rewards. Now they're just weird: You go from Level 116-119 and things progress smoothly but you go from Level 119-121 and suddenly all the gear drops have nearly double the stats on them, mob Morale is nearly double, etc. But no LEVEL squish, it's not happening.

I don't see them doing a level squish, they make money off of Valars in the store and expansion pre-orders and won't lose the income. Stat squish is much needed though

I think they where talking about a stat squish, resulting on equal damage numbers along the line of leveling…. In a game witouth real endgame thats all about the journey, a level squish makes absolutely no sense…. The longer the journey, the better.

regardless if there are 70 or 140 levels i will still level the same way, doing all the content with the use of my handy dandy xp disabler., i don't raid or care about end game at all, its all about the journey for me.

One final point: you say the one thing LOTRO needs is new players. I disagree. I think the main thing LOTRO needs is to keep its existing, reasonably large and loyal playerbase, who have kept the game going all these (many) years. I think all the focus last year on low-level zones for new players proved that in the process you can upset your established playerbase, who are the ones who've been playing (and paying -- often a lot) for upwards of 15 years. While ideally the game would do things to attract new players, I think those things need to not also put off the existing players. A level squish has the potential to do this, which is why I'm very hesitant (though not entirely against the idea -- so long as all of these issues are seriously looked at and addressed).

Swish the levels and make it easier to get maxed out gear. Grinding for weeks and never having good enough gear to run Tier 2-5 runs has been a 12 year long frustration for me.

I think it's a sensible to do, I would be more engaged with it.

Instead of taking away levels from me and players. I would like to see a reduction of xp needed to level. Make the leveling faster. I used to play WoW all the time but when I logged into Shadow Lands and my level was 60 I stopped playing for a long time and I still don't really play very much since.

Do you still play @Brightlife??

Lvl 140 to lvl 80

A level squish wouldn't reduce the total time to max level unless SSG explicitly designed it that way. The problem of a level squish is that it is a monumental undertaking that SSG is not equipped for. Saying that this game is massive is an understatement, the idea that SSG is going to take the time to rework all items, all damage, all stats, all trait point distribution, all health values, all zones, all dungeons, all skirmishes, all raids, and all epic battles(lmao). It's highly improbable. The biggest pro, is that the numbers would be smaller, thus the strain on the servers would be lessened. As someone who has recently played through an mmo where the level cap was 490, I can say for certain that levels are meaningless. Guild Wars 1 has had the best leveling experience to date, don't @me.

140 is a bit much, I have been playing for a while now in whatever free time I have and I am only level 28 on 1 character. I am desperate to do Moria but is taking a while to get there.

Problem with lvl squish means they might have to squish all other areas expansions and rewards that are from quests, would take ages I would rather them fix things like lag or update the servers maybe graphics engine, yeh the end game might be 140 but what's the rush to get there just enjoy the journey and story

not really a fan of lvl sqishing ideas yea ive played for years so lvling for me isn't a burden can get any class 1-140 in about 4 and a half days of playtime via questing and compleating every quest deed along the way.

I WILL remind you all..... the level cap used to be at >>>85... which was cool but, due to BAD choices, they were leaking players... BADLY... they have NEVER addressed the REAL lag problem, which was and is still running servers on the cheap... NOT the software.

in my opinion its stupid cause the people should feel thankful of having the lvl cap. As a new player its nice to see that you are not done with this game under a week and thats the spirit of an mmorpg. When I reach max lvl in a mmorpg after 1 week the game is doing smth wrong.

Honestly, I think the game needs some graphics updating and the lag eliminated and think that's where the devs should focus their limited resources. I would much rather they move the game to Unreal Engine 5 then a level squish. I played the game for 9 years and quit about 5 years ago and a level squish would not convince me to return to the game.

I've been playing for over 13 years and how i look at leveling is not 140 is being my goal, i break it down per zone. For example If I'm in the Lone-Lands and I'm Level 24, I look at it like by the end of this zone I should be around level 28-30, not how long it will be till I reach 140. I focus on the levels per zones and I'm able to enjoy each zone more. So a level squish does matter to me as much other that I believe it would take more of a grind per level and actually seem to take longer per level.

Plx lvl squish all the way

From what you say, wouldn't the high amount of levels also be able to interpreted as something "good": Because it promises so much content for all the levels in the Game. And every couple of Levels there are milestones: either for Crafting or content being unlocked. If you do not craft or care to explore this content unlock messages within the Game, then that would be on the player (willfully) ignoring these and not the Game (Design) itself! Devs should not bend to the short-sightedness of those players, who project their experiences and prejudices they bring from *other* Games to LoTRO, just because they *think* "oh, it's gonna be so tedious getting to friggin' *End-Game*" and thereby ignoring the very strength, that you are obviously aware of, too (being: the Game's Story is worth playing *ALL the Way*!). In WoW, much of the Game's Storyline leading up to the "End-Game" felt meaningless even more after the Level-squish, i.m.h.o. - and if that's implemented everywhere, there won't be anything discerning much of the MMOs at all in the end, too, i.m.h.o. - they're just gonna be a homogen/"streamlined" repetition of the same "Patterns" without and "edges" and everyone will be able to play any of them to "waste time" and not "spend Quality Time" immersing themselves into a Game, but merely "feeding the Dopamine-Addictions"... That would be just incredibly dull and sad from my perspective, because the unique complexities, that all those Games used to have when they were launched in the early 2000s, made them so exciting to explore and learn their Mechanics, strengths and weaknesses in each of them and know, that each of them felt "different" and not so much "the same" as many of them do today! Involvement felt meaningful and not "ugh, just another Iteration of the same sh*t" P.S.: Concerning "Mid-Game Dungeons": aren't *all* Dungeons scale-able to certain levels - and isn't one of the greatest *strengths* of this Game also the *extremely supportive* (vs. highly toxic and otherwise anti-social in many other MMOs - except maybe FFXIV)? So, I haven't seen many slurs or undignifying expressions in the usual chat (except on some of the larger populated servers, naturally) when someone was asking for help with a certain dungeon. Also, the Kinships usually take good care of their members when it comes to this content - unless you're in a "Storage-one-player Kinship", of course...so, that is the least of the problems, i.m.h.o. And, taking it's *Multi-Player*-Game, asking other players for support, is one of the most essential parts of this. As long as there actually *is* a social *Community* to help each other, that's part of the *"Magic"* of MMORPGs, i.m.h.o. And that's why moderating conflicts and showing anti-social players the boundaries of this - *not* tolerating the Intolerant like in Karl Popper's "Paradox of Tolerance" - significantly helps the community to stay non-toxic, too, therefore! Another important question: If you go on a journey of Exploration, do you know how long it's gonna take and which "level"/age you'll be when you finish it?

I played LOTRO last year and got to level 13. I returned recently and am lost. Any guilds out there to help a 50 year old noob who love LOTRs?

We need a stat squish and it was largely a result of their stat overhaul of a few years ago , which greatly inflated stats, particularly vitality. If something isn't done you will need a widescreen monitor soon just to display morale and damage values. The issue is we are here due to a poorly thought out/executed change to the game in the first place. An issue with a level squish is we have multiple areas of the same level range below level 50 then from Moria you only have one path, then sporadically you have duplicate level zones, it is a dog's breakfast, they keep adding low level zones and you have to skip 3/4 of it or else everything will grey out and the vast majority of landscape quests are menial tasks, you could prune 80% of the quests and it wouldn't really impact the story telling. There is no point to squish the levels and just make it take a month to level, it wont achieve anything. A problem is new players spend a long time away from where the rest of the playerbase is and we have a fundamental problem being FTP and players having to invest in multiple expansions and quest packs just to figure out if they like the game or not. Someone with a calculator needs to figure out if the churn of new players is worth whatever they make from very old content purchases before they bail out. When WoW did the level squish, you got to maximum level prior to the current expansion by doing one of their previous expansions, then you have to do the current expansion to get from there to maximum level, it significantly reduces the length of the journey. If you buy the current WoW expansion, you get all the previous content for free, the same with FFXIV. At times SSG has given the content away or is very cheap during end of year sales/black friday, but for long periods it would require a significant investment. Doing anything remotely like this BEFORE fixing all the latency problems is waste of development effort because people get hit by unplayable lag and I wouldn't play a new/different game if it was in the technical state that LOTRO is in. Most of us who remain are attached to the community, new people don't have that attachment. I think we are bleeding players who had been playing longer because the content at maximum level too heavily leans towards repeatable daily/weekly content. Let's be realistic, it is the easiest content to make but there is just too many dailies/weeklies and people just get bored/burn out doing it over and over and we have gone from one expansion to the next with a copy/paste of the same system. The gearing and progression path in terms of doing things in an enjoyable way, like doing dungeons is heavily gated by having the majority of meaningful upgrades gated behind strict limitations and a difficulty curve WAY beyond the capability of the average player. The devs largely listen to the minority of the playerbase that is the harder core raiders and in an effort to appease them/slow down their progress they make the content incompatible with 90% of the playerbase. This is what happens when the you do that, you will end up with the playerbase that you make the content for. FFXIV doesn't have this problem because the devs tell their hard core players, they aren't the priority. They still create content for them but the rewards for the most absurdly hard content are largely cosmetic in nature, the vast majority of their progression/gearing content can be done by the vast majority of their playerbase. Addressing levelling issues wont resolve the retention problem, it will shift more people who leave during the level process to slightly later on when they hit the wall at maximum level. I don't want to sound all doom and gloom, there is a lot of great things about the game and I enjoy playing it, but there are a lot of reasons why the MMO doesn't have the playerbase this IP should have and my concern is the possibility that Amazon will take advantage of that vulnerability to make a bid for exclusive rights, similar to what EA did with their Star Wars rights which forced Sony to shut down Star Wars Galaxies because it didn't have the playerbase/revenue to compete.

A twelve year or so veteran, I walked away from LOTRO a couple of years ago, not because of the levels of the character but because of the insane gear grind. It killed the game stone dead to have to grind *so* much to upgrade a Legendary a little bit. Lots of work, no sense of progression and definitely no sense that the item is truly Legendary.

Developers already said there will be no level squish.

There are too many quests for a level squish, without a mechanic like wow to experience 1-60 and then separate leveling 61-70 for example.

bro i m level 140, but maybe better new level cap be 50 or 60 lvl

Instead of LVL squish i would prefer for player lvl to downgrade to the zone lvl they enter . A little like the Epic battel downgrades a max lvl to lvl 100 . So low lvl zones would always have its dangers!

Level squish? Just a bit. Maybe a not EXPENSIVE way for level up FAST if you want to have an endgame character, but you can still play the other levels and areas in slow play with the other toons

A goodkin runs events fo😊rally Levels, the decline is the huge mess with LIs, grinding, and poor design of the delvings

i am totally against a level squish since, like i said, reaching max level before even reaching moria would be a massive bullet to the brain for LOTRO since the WHOLE GAME is the JOURNEY....you kill the journey and the game is closed in 6 months....that would make LOTRO players just rush to endgame exactly like in WoW...and they quit WoW because of that.....a level squish removes a part of what makes LOTRO unique....once everything is the exact same then everything will become boring

i'm never playing lotro again full stop if they do a level squish. lotro has always been about the slow leveling through a massive world for me. That's its main attraction and I would have no reason to return if this were tampered with

Leveling is fast. They could give xp bonus for low levels. Don't need to follow wow, many left wow because of the delving crap and the squish was the last straw, a go

Afaik its not a lvl squish but a stat squish