Lord of the Rings Online is a good game, and at level 31 now, I feel fairly confident to say it’s got a lot going for it now and in the future. Over the weekend a few events took place that made me realize exactly how well crafted the game really is. Allow me to explain one of them today.

Cause: Duel boxing.

I play my main, a hobbit guardian, with my girlfriend, a hobbit hunter. This works well for a few reasons, mainly keeping the amount of time we play limited to her schedule, keeping us at a nice steady pace without rushing through too much content at one time. So we were questing in the North Downs, the elite troll missions to be exact, when it was time for her to leave for work. Being in a nice group, she walked away leaving her character on follow to get credit for the quest and have me finish up. Turns out the quest chain had another mission to complete after our current one, and the group wanted to finish the last part. I agreed, and we head back to the trolls, gf hunter on follow. Luckily the two computers are close, so it’s not too much trouble switching from one keyboard to another, so I figured we would be fine with me just setting her to auto-attack and tanking as normal on my guardian. The next 30 minutes had to be the most frantic of my life. Forget using multiple skills on each character, it took all my effort to simply keep both characters doing ANYTHING useful in each fight, as we routinely encountered multiple mobs, adds, LOS issues, etc. We had a strong group, so we were able to finish without anyone taking a dirt nap, but the difference of me duel boxing and her actually playing was somewhat remarkable.

Long winded setup done, here is my point; LoTRO has a very active combat system, and one that works well. Most skills are on a very short cooldown timer, forcing you to be active and constantly use different skills to perform at max efficiency. No more “hit skill, 10 second cooldown, hit skill again”. You also get multiple somewhat similar skills, which at first is confusing, but later becomes clear; options. At all points in combat, you have options as to what skill to use. Very few situation do you execute a pre-set combo of skills, outside of an opening set perhaps. The approach to one mob is very different than two mobs, and different still versus three, etc. The guardian class, for example, is a very reactive class. Different skills become available after a block or a parry. Your best taunt skill comes off the block chain, so it’s very important on a tough mob to get that block to trigger early, as you want your dps classes to be able to do their thing without fear of agro. The game gives you skills to increase block chance of course, setting up another act/react system. It’s a deep system that at first comes off very simple and user friendly, which is a tough thing to pull off. It’s also easy to overlook or ignore the fine balance due to LoTRO being somewhat easy in general, but place yourself in some tougher fights and you will see a noticeable difference between skill mashing and playing to your characters max efficiency.

The combat system also uses some tried and true ideas, manages to mix in some key differences, and have it all come out working in the end. Both the hunter and the champion class use a point system similar to a warrior from WoW, in that you must build up a certain amount of points in combat before being able to use your better attacks. The twist on the hunter is that you must stand still to gain focus points. Move around too much during a fight, and you will notice a sizable decrease in DPS. A small change, but one that adds a nice layer of complexity, as you must now pre-plan your location to avoid LoS and range issues. You also need to balance your focus points as well. If you expect you will be facing lots of weaker mobs, better save some focus for your powerful AoE attack. Need to take down something quick, bust out your very powerful finishing shot, which takes a full five focus to pull off. Small changes, but ones that add up when everything is put together, and can give a well played group an edge in a tough fight.

There are other examples that I won’t talk about here, such as the combo attack system, how the game handles healing, class roles, etc. My point however, is that while it’s very easy to take a glace at LoTRO and call it a WoW clone in Middle Earth, a closer inspection will reveal a game with a very solid base, some clever ideas, and a bright future in the hands of a capable and responsive developer.