When Before the Shadow arrives in Lord of the Rings Online next month, it will bring both an additional set of missions and a new “delving” difficulty option to increase the challenge and rewards. It’s clear to me by now that Standing Stone Games is doubling down hard on missions as one of the key systems of the MMORPG going forward, and as such, I feel that this system should be scrutinized.
In today’s column, we’ll be going over a brief history of missions, their use in LOTRO, and whether or not they are actually a boon to the game. Let’s unpack missions and see where this road leads!
A brief history of missions
First introduced in October 2020 with the War of the Three Peaks content update, the mission system offered a brand-new game mode for LOTRO. Players level 20 and up could talk to an NPC to jump into a series of scaling instances that would be reset every day. These missions were relatively quick and paid out in experience and a related currency that could be saved up to spend on exclusive rewards. There is only a little variation within them, as a different “twist” is activated to change mob behavior.
Since that update, SSG since added five more batches of missions with the Wildwood, Bilbo Baggins, Erebor, Gundabad, and Elladan and Elrohir series. This means that there’s roughly six sets of about 10 missions each, with associated “wrapper” quests that pay out in extra rewards (such as virtue XP, embers/motes of enchantments, boosts, and more) once completed.
When the mini-expansion arrives in November, the delving mechanic will be added to missions to allow players to work their way through 10 tiers of difficulty for greater rewards (including Tier 3-equivalent raid gear).
The pros of missions
Just to be up front with you, I have availed myself frequently of the mission system over the past two years and have become quite familiar with it as a result. It’s a far more streamlined and simplified system than skirmishes, its nearest contemporary, with a mission going as quick as one minute to no more than 10.
For a time reference, I can usually blast through all 10 Wildwood missions in about a half-hour if I’m on a tear. Well, at least nine of them; I typically skip Trouble on the Brandywine because it’s a timed defense mission that takes seven minutes no matter how efficiently you kill mobs.
So obviously I have found something to like in missions. I call them the “poor player’s level boost,” because the missions and the wrappers combined are a somewhat breezy way to churn out levels and get some extra rewards in the process. For alting, this can be a huge help, especially if you want to skip past Eriador and get right to level 45 and Moria questing.
Missions are low-fuss and, once you have done the same ones a few times, accomplishable with a minimum of thought and effort. You just zip through them on autopilot and reap the rewards. It’s also quite helpful that there’s virtually no travel time once you arrive at the missions NPC. You simply activate the mission, click accept, and the instance loads right away.
And some of those rewards are nice, with pets and currency and virtue XP. The delving system intrigues me, especially as it might be a casual-friendly way to earn better gear.
All in all, missions are somewhat of a sleeper hit in LOTRO these days. They work well, people like them, and they’re not too complicated to use. So they’re only a force of good, right? Well, I do have some qualms, so read on, McDuff!
The cons of missions
There are some minor points to nitpick about missions in general, as you might expect. Not every mission is made well, and some of them are downright annoying to do. This can be easily overcome by memorizing which are the ones you like and which you want to avoid, but it should be mentioned that there are some stinkers in the bunch.
I’m also not a fan of the separate mission NPCs and their limited barter tables. If you’re really going on a mission tear, then you’re going to be scooting all over the world while thinking, “Why can’t I just access this through a menu prompt, as with dungeons?” SSG does seem to quickly abandon older mission sets for the latest one, leaving those loot tables to languish and players to fill their pockets with useless currency.
But perhaps my biggest qualm is a concern that missions might just be too good. As we all well know, MMO players will often take the path of least resistance in attaining the reward or goal they desire, even if that path is less interesting. So now we have a system that virtually pumps out XP and rewards with far less work than it takes to quest, which is LOTRO’s bread-and-butter. Yes, it’s nice to have alternatives, but when one of those alternatives is this easy, then it’s going to suck people more into its orbit and away from everything else.
I say that this is a “qualm” because while I like missions, I don’t want my whole LOTRO experience to be about missions. As with any repeatable content, you can get wholly sick of missions far before you gain the reward you desire — yet you feel compelled to keep going because it’s a faster, easier alternative. Sucking people into missions and then making them hate doing too many missions over and over is a good recipe for burning out in an MMO entirely.
In short, missions are competing with the rest of LOTRO and in danger of eroding the attraction and appeal of adventuring through this amazing world. I hope that SSG sees that there’s a balancing act that needs to happen here and will take action if missions end up threatening the rest of the game’s ecosystem.
But all in all, missions get a big thumbs-up from me. They’re a huge help to those of us who alt or for anyone who is starved for XP in a particular area. They are fun diversions with alternative reward packages, and getting those wrapper rewards often make doing 15 or 45 missions a week worth the effort.
So what do you think of missions? Do you see them as good or bad or somewhere in between? Do you engage in them? Sound off in the comments!
Every two weeks, the LOTRO Legendarium goes on an adventure (horrid things, those) through the wondrous, terrifying, inspiring, and, well, legendary online world of Middle-earth. Justin has been playing LOTRO since its launch in 2007! If you have a topic for the column, send it to him at justin@massivelyop.com.
