Basically learn how to play each class or go back to WoW etc… I have seen many morphs ruined by unskilled so-called roleplayers who only know how to cry and whine for nerfs. I would suggest that these balance knights go back to first person shooters where skill and thinking does not matter.

LOTRO is designed to work as a thinking team and not point and click patterns. Healing is fine in the game. Let your Gaurdian pull and taunt then manage your aggro DPS so that the true main tank(gaurdian) can keep the aggro. A skilled captian will mark the main and kill a lesser minion so he/she can cast group HOTs etc… It’s all about knowing your class and how to play in a group.

WoW is easy and EQ2 has too many nerfs, Vangaurd is broken, and nerfs killed DAOC. LOTRO is a different game and it’s not for everyone.

Every time I see Chuck Norris in OCC I tell these children to go back to WoW and stay! Middle Earth is not and should not be compared to WoW etc…. sorry but thats the truth.

Except I notice it often doesn’t work for cries but only ballads. I keep meaning to bug it.

Also it only works if the tank is in combat attacking the mob. If the tank is just standing there targetting something, it gives the “invalid target” error.

The other thing I don’t like is there is no indication of what the tank is targetting, I am casting blind really.

But it’s a good enough solution for the easy instances so far.

And actually I like having one main healing class, I’m not sure really about the others, but if the others’ healing were too good, they’d probably get forced to heal like other off-healers are in raids in other games. At least now only one class will be forced to heal :)

By the by, I’ve tagged you for a challenge over on my blog…

http://bildos.blogspot.com/2007/04/tag-im-it.html

I’ll take a look at the “target’s target” thing, that’s just what EQ2 has and I’ve come to depend on it. Thanks!

I spent last night installing the high-res textures. Wake up this morning to see how wonderful everything looks and… meh… don’t look much different to me.

It could be reason enough for seeing such bad play among non-practiced Captains and Minstrels, that and the fact that the early levels will weed out the good healers. Even so, I feel like I should probably play my Captain or Minstrel up to 50 because my Kin is going to need them… like you said, you don’t realize how important they are in LotRO until you finally actually need one. Fellowship Maneuvers won’t save you all the time, nice as they are.

BTW, Tipa, thanks for the comment on my blog, I replied back this morning.

The devs did design the encounters to support captain backup healing; usually mobs come in waves with both elite and normal mobs in them. You’re supposed to kill a normal mob when you need a captain heal while focusing on taking down the elite mobs, which is very reminiscent of some high-end raids in EQ and WoW (especially EQ1′s Vishimitar raid, a very long fight where you can choose to kill a mob that refreshes the raid’s health and mana at certain points if needed, or also Overlord Mata Muram, who gives you a five minute rest in the middle of the encounter, which is damn nice of him by the way).

Also, fellowship skills pop up occasionally, similar to EQ2′s heroic opportunities, and the more people who press the same button within range of each other at the same time, the more powerful an effect will be generated.

So experienced raiders should be able to figure out group dynamics pretty easily. Are these expected of new players? Level 12-15 players? People who have never met before regardless of their MMO skills?

After release, these particular instances will undoubtedly be done with the help of people several levels higher, and so what is done with six people 12-15 will be done with four people 12-17 and two people level 20 or higher — and then the encounter will be trivial and healing won’t even be an issue.

But eventually will come the raids, and then it will be important to have discussed this early on.

I’m not sure I agree with you on the lack of healing (although agreed it needs to be tweaked), but I do think that what you’ve run into really is a problem in the LoTRO design: there just aren’t enough classes in the game. I also think the classes are a little difficult for the average player to get their arms around. When you first start playing a game, do you choose a Guardian, Captain, or Champion? What’s the difference? You really have to do some reading to figure out which one is going to best suit your style of play. Also, it bugs me to no end that “Captain” is a class. It’s a rank, not a class, dammit! :)