Grouping or "Fellowing" is one of the most enjoyable parts of LOTRO. It allows you to form a temporary group of fellow players who can join together and share in the exploits of their adventures. Fellowing helps you defeat monsters that would otherwise overcome your morale or help you find hidden locations for various quest objectives that you would otherwise waste hours exploring to find. It's also great just for the friendships you form while in Fellowship helping others.
Ok, so let's get into it:
Why?
#1 - It's multi-player d'oh!
In order to get the most enjoyment from LOTRO you absolutely need to be in Fellowships during some parts of your game. So the #1 reason is that its just an integral part of the experience.
#2 - Tough mobs & Instances
Every now and then in Middle Earth you will encounter tough monsters that will take more than your own morale to overcome. While playing solo this might seem unlikely but if you play long enough you'll realize how true this is. Several instances and dungeons, starting from the Barrow Downs in Bree Land are better explored in groups. The sheer danger of dying is the #2 reason you should form Fellowships.
#3 - Maximize your gains!
When you group you get XP points for the kills made by your fellowship members (as long as they are within a radius close to you) and you also get kill-counts for the mobs they kill. This means grouping is the best way to gain XP and finish slayer deeds where sharing the rewards just makes gameplay faster and more enjoyable. As you keep playing LOTRO you will recognize that the best players are the players who have figured out how to "Optmize" i.e, complete the same areas / regions of the map as other players but with much less effort while having more fun! This is possible only with groups!
#4 - Balance
LOTRO like any other MMO ensures that your character as an individual does not have all the abilities of other characters. So this means you need to learn to work with other players who play classes different from yours to learn balance! A guardian is excellent at taking damage from mobs several levels higher than him and still surviving for a long time. However it will take him a long time to deal enough damage to overcome the mob. If you combine the guardian with a hunter, the hunter can stand safely back while the guardian draws the ire of the mob and deal heavy damage using his bow to bring down the enemy swiftly. If the hunter were alone, the enemy would attack him and quickly defeat him, but the hunter is protected from harm by the guardian! In this manner, different classes must work together, supporting each other for balance!
How to form a Fellowship?
Simply click on another player in the game, then right click his portrait and hover on 'Fellowship', then click 'invite'. If that player is already in another fellowship then the leader of that fellowship must invite you. The leader is the first player who initiates the invitations. Only the leader can add new members to the group, and perform special actions like 'ready check'. Leadership can be passed to another player if the current leader chooses to.
Effective Groups.
The combination - Tanks, DPS, Heals, Crowd Control
This stuff should be common knowledge for regular MMO players, however, when I started LOTRO I was playing an MMO for the first time and so I will be writing under the assumption that my readers are also very new to MMOs.
Basically this ties up to what I was talking about in my 'Balance' section. An effective fellowship is a group that uses the unique powers of its different characters to its advantage. Typically these 'powers' are divided into four categories.
Tanks: Guardians and Wardens are the Tanks of LOTRO. Champions and Captains can also tank from time to time. The key factor here is these classes (except Warden) can wear Heavy Armor and survive while taking heavy damage from the enemies. If you are not one of the tank classes, you may not know this and its imperative that you do in order to be effective in a group. A tank's role in a group is to lead the charge and hold the 'aggro' or ire of the mobs. A mob will attack a player based on how threatening that player is to the mob.
DPS: DPS means damage-per-second. Hunters and Champions are the dps-ers in the group. While hunters focus on ranged damage, champions jump right into the fray and deal heavy melee blows. champions also tend to do AoE damage (Area of Effect), That means their damage is often dealt to multiple mobs around them at the same time, whereas hunters usually are single-target nukers dealing heavier damage but usually to only one target at a time. DPS classes tend to quickly rise in the threat table and draw the aggro of the mobs away from the tank. This is ok if the mob is close to dying and the dps class can just finish it off. However, if the DPS guy is a hunter and the mob is still in good shape when he switches to attack the hunter, the hunter should quickly take action to drop threat. The simplest way to do this is to stop attacking and wait for the Tank to come over and take the mob's aggro back. You could also run to the tank forcing the mob to follow you and make the tank's job easier!
Heals: Minstrels and Rune-Keepers are the healers in LOTRO. Captains and Lore-Masters can also heal a bit but not as much as the mini or the RK. The healer's job is to keep the tank alive. Since the tank is getting hit by several mobs at once, his morale tends to drop and the healer is there to replenish it. If you are not the tank, the healer may heal you only if you're close to death, otherwise the expectation is that you can use a pot (potion) or self-heal skill if you have one to save yourself. The priority for the healer is always the tank. Healers also tend to draw threat away from the tank because of the high amount of heals they give to the tank. Just as with DPS classes the healer should try to drop threat by stopping heals (if the tank can survive it) and try to return the aggro to the tank. The healer can also rez (revive) a defeated member of the fellowship.
Crowd Control (CC): CC is an often overlooked element in groups sometimes. It's a largely support function but can be extremely useful in many situations. In fact some situations absolutely require good CC to survive. Lore-Masters are the CC class in the game. Burglars, Captains and Hunters can do limited amount of CC but it's really the LM's forte. CC means to daze / mezz / root the enemy and incapacitate them for the advantage of the fellowship. There are several applications for CC. If your fellowship is fighting a group of mobs and there is an enemy archer beyond the tank's radius then the LM can simply put a daze on the archer to take him out of the fight! In situations where a mob boss is being helped by several adds (Additional Mobs) CC can mean the difference between victory and a fellowship wipe! The LM class can also replenish power to other characters, boosting the power to the tanks and DPS classes. CC classes can also rez (revive) defeated players.
So the takeaway from this section is - know your role, know the other's roles, be your role,.. own your role! =)
Etiquette
Etiquette is extremely important in a group. I'm going to talk about group etiquette based on a few different categories.
Communication: A group is only as effective as the communication and understanding between its members. If you're playing in a very experienced group where each player understands his / her role and knows enough about the environment / instance you are playing in, then you could have long periods of play without much communication. BUT, as is often the case, if you're joining a PUG (pick-up-group) on the fly and don't know the other players, its very important to communicate. Several players use voice chat so you can turn that on from your audio options if you like or if you prefer, you can chat in the fellowship chat channel (prefix /f). Always announce important actions before you do it, such as - "I'm going to concentrate on the main boss" or "I will be afk for a min, bio" etc.
Let the leader lead: Fellowships work best when there is a chain of command. Let the leader take charge and give the orders. If you disagree, send a tell instead of fellowship chat so that the chain of command is not broken. If your leader is inexperienced, politely send a tell requesting transfer of leadership to you or someone else. If your leader is a plain jerk, leave the fellowship and ignore that player. If you are the leader, perform frequent ready checks, explain boss fights when you get close to them. Communicate responsibilities clearly e.g. "Hunter, use fear on the add on the right, then nuke the boss." If you're not the leader, send clear messages acknowledging the orders / instructions so that everyone's on the same page.
Looting: When you're in a group, the loot acquired from mobs and chests are distributed among all members. The fellowship leader gets to set the loot rule and the preferred rule I've seen is 'Round Robin Roll / Pass'. In this option each player gets to 'roll' for a chance to get that loot or 'pass' to pass the opportunity to other players. Roll only for the items you really need and if there's a specific item you want, let the fellowship know and see if they will be kind enough to let you have it if one of them gets it first.
Patience: Not everyone is a good player, not everyone is as fast as you are. So be patient with other players who make mistakes and they will be patient with you when you screw up! If you're very familiar with an instance and you are playing with others who are not, don't go running in fast, let the others catch up, point out interesting facts to them and help them out. If you're an inexperienced player, just acknowledge that from the get-go, let other players know you'll need advice and pointers in new areas.
Summary:
Whoa, so this turned out to be a longer post than I'd intended, and I'm sure I left several important points out. However in summary, I'd just say - Grouping is a great way to experience the game and really adds to the challenge of it. Try to have an understanding of different roles in a group and play your role as best you can, communicate with other players and finally - don't be a jerk!
I read this article on lotro grouping which I think is much better written and has great pointers in it, so do go ahead and check it out as well: http://dawnsong.org/LotRO/guides/grouping.htm
"Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva" (Sweet water and light laughter till next we meet)
-Esv
Ok, so let's get into it:
Why?
#1 - It's multi-player d'oh!
In order to get the most enjoyment from LOTRO you absolutely need to be in Fellowships during some parts of your game. So the #1 reason is that its just an integral part of the experience.
#2 - Tough mobs & Instances
Every now and then in Middle Earth you will encounter tough monsters that will take more than your own morale to overcome. While playing solo this might seem unlikely but if you play long enough you'll realize how true this is. Several instances and dungeons, starting from the Barrow Downs in Bree Land are better explored in groups. The sheer danger of dying is the #2 reason you should form Fellowships.
#3 - Maximize your gains!
When you group you get XP points for the kills made by your fellowship members (as long as they are within a radius close to you) and you also get kill-counts for the mobs they kill. This means grouping is the best way to gain XP and finish slayer deeds where sharing the rewards just makes gameplay faster and more enjoyable. As you keep playing LOTRO you will recognize that the best players are the players who have figured out how to "Optmize" i.e, complete the same areas / regions of the map as other players but with much less effort while having more fun! This is possible only with groups!
#4 - Balance
LOTRO like any other MMO ensures that your character as an individual does not have all the abilities of other characters. So this means you need to learn to work with other players who play classes different from yours to learn balance! A guardian is excellent at taking damage from mobs several levels higher than him and still surviving for a long time. However it will take him a long time to deal enough damage to overcome the mob. If you combine the guardian with a hunter, the hunter can stand safely back while the guardian draws the ire of the mob and deal heavy damage using his bow to bring down the enemy swiftly. If the hunter were alone, the enemy would attack him and quickly defeat him, but the hunter is protected from harm by the guardian! In this manner, different classes must work together, supporting each other for balance!
How to form a Fellowship?
Simply click on another player in the game, then right click his portrait and hover on 'Fellowship', then click 'invite'. If that player is already in another fellowship then the leader of that fellowship must invite you. The leader is the first player who initiates the invitations. Only the leader can add new members to the group, and perform special actions like 'ready check'. Leadership can be passed to another player if the current leader chooses to.
Effective Groups.
The combination - Tanks, DPS, Heals, Crowd Control
This stuff should be common knowledge for regular MMO players, however, when I started LOTRO I was playing an MMO for the first time and so I will be writing under the assumption that my readers are also very new to MMOs.
Basically this ties up to what I was talking about in my 'Balance' section. An effective fellowship is a group that uses the unique powers of its different characters to its advantage. Typically these 'powers' are divided into four categories.
Tanks: Guardians and Wardens are the Tanks of LOTRO. Champions and Captains can also tank from time to time. The key factor here is these classes (except Warden) can wear Heavy Armor and survive while taking heavy damage from the enemies. If you are not one of the tank classes, you may not know this and its imperative that you do in order to be effective in a group. A tank's role in a group is to lead the charge and hold the 'aggro' or ire of the mobs. A mob will attack a player based on how threatening that player is to the mob.
Segway to Threat and Aggro Management.
Each mob maintains a 'threat' table, a row for each player with a threat value assigned, and it will attack the player with the highest threat. A player might rise in the threat table if he / she attacks the mob and deals damage to it, heals a player who is dealing damage to the mob or simply stands close to the mob for too long.
Ideally you want the tank to always be highest on the threat tables of all mobs around. That way, other characters can focus on 'dps-ing' (damaging) the mobs one at a time without the fear of being attacked. So usually in a group, the tank is allowed a couple of seconds alone to jump in front and draw the aggro of all the enemies and build up a high threat before the other members of the group jump into the fray.Each mob maintains a 'threat' table, a row for each player with a threat value assigned, and it will attack the player with the highest threat. A player might rise in the threat table if he / she attacks the mob and deals damage to it, heals a player who is dealing damage to the mob or simply stands close to the mob for too long.
DPS: DPS means damage-per-second. Hunters and Champions are the dps-ers in the group. While hunters focus on ranged damage, champions jump right into the fray and deal heavy melee blows. champions also tend to do AoE damage (Area of Effect), That means their damage is often dealt to multiple mobs around them at the same time, whereas hunters usually are single-target nukers dealing heavier damage but usually to only one target at a time. DPS classes tend to quickly rise in the threat table and draw the aggro of the mobs away from the tank. This is ok if the mob is close to dying and the dps class can just finish it off. However, if the DPS guy is a hunter and the mob is still in good shape when he switches to attack the hunter, the hunter should quickly take action to drop threat. The simplest way to do this is to stop attacking and wait for the Tank to come over and take the mob's aggro back. You could also run to the tank forcing the mob to follow you and make the tank's job easier!
Heals: Minstrels and Rune-Keepers are the healers in LOTRO. Captains and Lore-Masters can also heal a bit but not as much as the mini or the RK. The healer's job is to keep the tank alive. Since the tank is getting hit by several mobs at once, his morale tends to drop and the healer is there to replenish it. If you are not the tank, the healer may heal you only if you're close to death, otherwise the expectation is that you can use a pot (potion) or self-heal skill if you have one to save yourself. The priority for the healer is always the tank. Healers also tend to draw threat away from the tank because of the high amount of heals they give to the tank. Just as with DPS classes the healer should try to drop threat by stopping heals (if the tank can survive it) and try to return the aggro to the tank. The healer can also rez (revive) a defeated member of the fellowship.
Crowd Control (CC): CC is an often overlooked element in groups sometimes. It's a largely support function but can be extremely useful in many situations. In fact some situations absolutely require good CC to survive. Lore-Masters are the CC class in the game. Burglars, Captains and Hunters can do limited amount of CC but it's really the LM's forte. CC means to daze / mezz / root the enemy and incapacitate them for the advantage of the fellowship. There are several applications for CC. If your fellowship is fighting a group of mobs and there is an enemy archer beyond the tank's radius then the LM can simply put a daze on the archer to take him out of the fight! In situations where a mob boss is being helped by several adds (Additional Mobs) CC can mean the difference between victory and a fellowship wipe! The LM class can also replenish power to other characters, boosting the power to the tanks and DPS classes. CC classes can also rez (revive) defeated players.
So the takeaway from this section is - know your role, know the other's roles, be your role,.. own your role! =)
Etiquette
Etiquette is extremely important in a group. I'm going to talk about group etiquette based on a few different categories.
Communication: A group is only as effective as the communication and understanding between its members. If you're playing in a very experienced group where each player understands his / her role and knows enough about the environment / instance you are playing in, then you could have long periods of play without much communication. BUT, as is often the case, if you're joining a PUG (pick-up-group) on the fly and don't know the other players, its very important to communicate. Several players use voice chat so you can turn that on from your audio options if you like or if you prefer, you can chat in the fellowship chat channel (prefix /f). Always announce important actions before you do it, such as - "I'm going to concentrate on the main boss" or "I will be afk for a min, bio" etc.
Let the leader lead: Fellowships work best when there is a chain of command. Let the leader take charge and give the orders. If you disagree, send a tell instead of fellowship chat so that the chain of command is not broken. If your leader is inexperienced, politely send a tell requesting transfer of leadership to you or someone else. If your leader is a plain jerk, leave the fellowship and ignore that player. If you are the leader, perform frequent ready checks, explain boss fights when you get close to them. Communicate responsibilities clearly e.g. "Hunter, use fear on the add on the right, then nuke the boss." If you're not the leader, send clear messages acknowledging the orders / instructions so that everyone's on the same page.
Looting: When you're in a group, the loot acquired from mobs and chests are distributed among all members. The fellowship leader gets to set the loot rule and the preferred rule I've seen is 'Round Robin Roll / Pass'. In this option each player gets to 'roll' for a chance to get that loot or 'pass' to pass the opportunity to other players. Roll only for the items you really need and if there's a specific item you want, let the fellowship know and see if they will be kind enough to let you have it if one of them gets it first.
Patience: Not everyone is a good player, not everyone is as fast as you are. So be patient with other players who make mistakes and they will be patient with you when you screw up! If you're very familiar with an instance and you are playing with others who are not, don't go running in fast, let the others catch up, point out interesting facts to them and help them out. If you're an inexperienced player, just acknowledge that from the get-go, let other players know you'll need advice and pointers in new areas.
Summary:
Whoa, so this turned out to be a longer post than I'd intended, and I'm sure I left several important points out. However in summary, I'd just say - Grouping is a great way to experience the game and really adds to the challenge of it. Try to have an understanding of different roles in a group and play your role as best you can, communicate with other players and finally - don't be a jerk!
I read this article on lotro grouping which I think is much better written and has great pointers in it, so do go ahead and check it out as well: http://dawnsong.org/LotRO/guides/grouping.htm
"Lissenen ar' maska'lalaith tenna' lye omentuva" (Sweet water and light laughter till next we meet)
-Esv
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