I’m going to continue musing today on a topic that I touched on in my LOTRO review: the concept of Risk vs. Reward, and how, in my view, the scale is so completely broken as to be meaningless in LOTRO. First, I will begin with the game design theory, and then I will describe how it works (or, rather, doesn’t work) in LOTRO, and finish up with suggestions on how to fix it.
The Theory of Risk vs. Reward
Most MMORPG gamers are familiar with the concept called the “Risk vs. Reward Ratio.” Simply put, the idea is that a reward item you receive in game should depend on how much risk you undertook to attain it. First let us define some terms here. A “reward” in a game like this boils down to either a looted item that’s “good” or “useful” to your character, or experience points, which are how your character gains levels, and through them skills, etc. A “risk” in a game like this boils down to the risk of being defeated (dying, or “retreating” in LOTRO parlance), including the various penalties such as wear and tear on your current (previously looted, usually) items.
Therefore, when someone says that the “risk should scale with the reward,” what he means is that the better the reward is, the greater the chance should be of “dying” (retreating) while attempting to obtain it. The less useful or “worthwhile” the reward is, the lower the risk of dying should be. You might hear someone on the forum, for instance, complain “I had to die 13 times to get this sword,” and others might respond, “reward = risk”. By this shorthand they mean, “If you wanted that huge reward you should have expected an enormous risk of dying.”
This, then, is the basic MMORPG theory of “risk vs. reward” — the greater the risk of character death in doing something, the greater the reward should be. The less the risk of character death, the less the reward should be. When the game gives you huge risk without reward, people will say it’s “too hard.” And when it gives you too big of a reward without risk, it is usually said to be “too easy.”
Risk without Reward in LOTRO
The problem with LOTRO is that this balance seems to be off on one side of the scale. It is true in LOTRO that you rarely get a good reward without undertaking some substantial risk, so that part lines up with the theory. But the flip side is where it goes astray — in LOTRO, it is possible to undertake enormous risk and receive little, if any, reward. The reason for this is that rewards are based on the level of the foe relative to your level, but the risk of fighting the foe is not based on its level, but rather, on its class.
Let me use something that happened the other night as an example. A friend and I were in the trollshaws and she had to go AFK suddenly. We were near the road by Thorenhad, and that road is patrolled by a level 36 Elite troll. My character was 41… 5 levels above the troll. As a result, it conned “green” to me.
However, the elite troll had about 3x as much morale as my character (5,000 or something to my 1,800ish), and is anything but “easy” to fight. As it wandered along, I accidentally aggroed it (my fault, no question). Since it was 36 I figured I could probably survive. And I did, but it took 2 potions and everything my 41 Warden had in her to beat this green conning Elite mob, and the battle took around 2 minutes of real time. The risk, therefore, was quite high. The Reward? A paltry 91 xp (rested… presumably 45 without rest), and a few bits of junk loot. Thus, a very high risk of death netted me less than 100 xp and nothing else.
Contrast this with fighting a normal (non-elite) enemy 2 levels higher than my character. At level 43, these normals have only a few more morale than she does, and can be taken down in about 20 seconds with a few quick attacks, and no need to hit the potions, defense gambits, or anything like that. This is an easy fight with little risk, and the reward is something on the order of 400 xp (200 if I hadn’t been rested)… a whopping 4x as much experience. I also got more valuable loot drops (pristine hides for instance, or more silver pieces) than the troll dropped.
The above examples clearly demonstrate that the risk-vs-reward ratio in LOTRO is off-kilter. Even if the risk of death had not been higher, battling the troll under rested xp conditions netted me something on the order of 50 xp/minute, while battling the glenn-buck 2 levels higher than my character would net something like 600 xp a minute (I can kill roughly 3 in 2 minutes). One cannot make the argument that the risk-reward ratio is “set right” when I can net 12x the reward with 1/12th the risk in one case vs. the other.
The problem is that LOTRO bases the reward on target level, but the risk on the class of the target, not its level. An elite that is 20 levels below me is still a threat, even though I get zero reward. Let me repeat that: something that can kill me can be worth no experience points. I have honestly never encountered another game like this of any sort. In all games, whether MMO or solo CRPG or even pen-and-paper, if there is a chance the thing can kill you (barring being purposely suicidal like attacking 1,000 of them and then not fighting back), there should be some reward for fighting it. If there is no reward then (again barring doing something purposely suicidal), there should be no risk. In City of Heroes, if you fight something that is “gray” to you, it has no chance against you, and gives you no reward. If it had a chance, you’d get at least some reward from fighting it.
I consider this to be a major game design flaw in LOTRO. In point of fact they have messed their risk/reward ratio up so much that it’s actually foolish to fight elites or even signatures in the game, at least if you want to gain XP. I’ve tried timing it and the fastest, easieast way to gain XP is to simply do mindless grinding of yellow conning or orange conning normal mobs. There is very little risk, and lots of quick reward. Fighting elites either requires you to fight something way below your level, which drops xp to a trickle, or grouping, which also lowers your xp gain per mob. It may be true that grouped, you kill elites fast enough that if you’re lucky, you can equal or perhaps slightly exceed the xp/minute rewards of soloing orange normal mobs. But, because of the time it would take to get your group together, any minor gains in this regard will be negated.
Now, the main reward I’ve spoken about here is experience. There is another kind: Loot. And it is true that elites will drop better loot. But here again, I question the value of the whole thing. Once again you are going to have to be grouped to get on-level or above-level loot drops, and that means you’ll only get the drop 1/6th of the time… vs. every time of a lower-probability drop from a non-elite mob. I haven’t done any hard statistics on this but my general sense is that I make money, gain decent items, and gain experience points, all three, faster while just soloing +1 and +2 mobs, than by grouping up to fight elites.
This setup makes no sense to me. If the risk is higher and the time it takes is longer to beat elites, then shouldn’t the rewards be much higher than those for fighting normals as a consequence? According to the risk/reward theory this would be a foregone conclusion, yet it is the opposite of how LOTRO is designed.
How to fix the system
One thing I try never to do is point out an issue or problem with a game without proposing a solution. So let me propose a couple of potential solutions here. I can see two ways to go to correct the probloem. Let us recall what it is: the risk of fighting light cyan, green, and gray elites is way too high for the paltry reward that they provide. For grays this is less of an issue, because they generally do not aggro do you… but greens and cyans will still aggro and can essentially “force” you to fight them, with big risk for lousy reward.
If the risk is too high for the reward provided, then, there are two fixes, which are:
Raise the reward: This is a simple fix. Keep the risk the same, but raise the reward. A simple multiplier will suffice. Call a normal mob’s experience multiplier, for reference, 1x. Call a singature’s 1.5x. Call an elite’s 3x. Now you’re giving me a reason to fight that elite. It’ll be worth 3x as much xp as a normal mob of the same level. That troll would now provide 270 xp (under rest) compared with the normal’s ~300 xp for a white con. It’s still not a perfect solution, but I hestitate to suggest more xp than that simply because it’s already a pretty radical change. Do it this much, see how it works. If nothing breaks, double it or so again. Basically the timing needs to work out so that elites are worth more xp per minute than normals, rather than far, far less (as they are right now). Give me a reason to want to fight elites, rather than a reason to avoid them at all costs due to the low reward.
Lower the risk: If you think the “xp curve” is already too easy and leveling is too fast (many do), then the alternative is equally simple. Give increasing penalties “to hit” and “to damage” to mobs as level drops off. That -5 green con should have almost no chance to hit me and do almost no damage. If he’s worth 1/3 the reward of a white conning normal, then he should be only 1/3 as risky (hard to fight) as a white conning normal. Make him take triple damage from my attacks, do -66% damage to me, and have a -66% chance to hit. Now you’ve scaled it right — he’ll be a cinch to take down, and provide almost no reward… making him just as useless to fight as he already is, but at least you’re not wasting my time and risking my life on the useless encounter. Oh and if he’s gray, and I can’t get any reward from him? His chance to hit me should be near zero — like 1% to hit, -99% damage. Why can I die vs. a gray con that’s -12 levels to me when I can’t get a single pip of xp from him? That makes no sense, so let’s get rid of it.
Wrap up
Well, there’s the problem, as I see it, and my proposed solutions. Do I think Turbine’ll do anything about this? Nah. The players don’t seem bothered by it (well, other than me), and as long as they’re making money as things are, I guess they don’t see the need to change it.
What this means for me, though, is a declining “enjoyment curve.” As the levels go up and I am faced with more and more cases of having to deal with elite mobs (and presumably “higher than elites” — a set of classes of mobs I’ve heard of but not yet encountered), the fun factor seems like it’s going to be bled out of the game bit by bit. And when that happens, odds are, I will probably just go back to COH… as I have done with other games in the past that do this (bleed the fun out of it as you level)… Vanguard, GW… etc.
For now, the game is still fun enough… as long as I avoid the elites whenever possible. For now… things are still good (but not great). We shall see what happens in places like Angmar, though…
