In some ways it is kind of odd running through Lord of the Rings Online so many years after much of the content I am seeing was actually launched.  I am now into the Riders of Rohan expansion, which launched in the back half of 2012.  So it has been a minute since anything I am seeing was new to the game.  But it is all new to me.

The Riders of Rohan – circa 2012

While SSG has changed and updated the game a lot since the early days, they haven’t gone completely all “invalidate every expansion gimmick” the second the next one shows up.  Sure, they were still under the sway of the Pokemon/WoW model where every expansion needed a unique gimmick, but they were more of the EverQuest plan on these sorts of things where the gimmick was allowed to remain and merely become irrelevant as later content landed.

Sort of.  With Mines of Moria we did get legendary items, which were a huge pain in the ass and invalidated some crafting professions, and rather than let those die out with the next expansion, the way WoW did with legendary weapons once the Legion expansion was over, Turbine remained committed to the bit and kept dragging that along despite all the drawbacks.  I kind of wish they had followed Blizz on that, but whatever.

I will have a post at some point about the current state of legendary items, which I think I now have mostly figured out.  But that is for later.

Then with Mirkwood we got… a commitment to some of the of the dullest content so far?  Soft focus elf porn? I don’t know really, it was just dull and lost me on a couple of tries.

Then came the Siege of Isengard where I guess there was a real effort to enhance story telling through instances.  I just played through most of it and that is my main take away.  I guess maybe also triggering quests by location or by killing mobs, but they rolled that back into a few… but not all… old zones, so I saw a bit of that in the Trollshaws and Misty Mountains and occasionally in Moria.

Now I have arrived in Rohan.  There are a couple of new mechanics there, as well as a lot of new art assets… though not so many assets that they don’t all get over used, with every settlement having its mead hall and what not.

But mounted combat was the big gimmick for Riders of Rohan and I will start out by saying that I came into this with low expectations.  The community did not seem to embrace the feature, at least as I saw it from the outside.  Being a fan of mounted combat is one of those things you seem to have to preface with the “unpopular opinion” online trope… which is honestly grating in and of itself.  And, of course, Turbine and SSG have been content to leave mounted combat in the horse fields of Rohan, never to be revived.

With all of that, my TL;DR is that I do not love it, but it doesn’t seem all that bad.

However, I cannot leave it at that.  You probably wouldn’t be here if you were looking for that level of effort.  So let me take you on my mounted combat journey.

When I finally rode into Rohan, which starts in The Wold, I went through a bit of the usual introduction to the locals at the first encampment, Langhold.  There is a story there… and one that gets oft repeated as you move through Rohan… and once into that I ended up in Harwick, which is something like the county seat for The Wold and which has a big horse practice arena with a guy at the door like a barker at the Mitchell Brother’s O’Farrell Theater inviting one and all to come in and see the horses.  But, you know, just horses.  And really, he just had the quest marker over his head, but he was standing on a busy path, so it was sort of the same.  Look, I am just sticking with that metaphor, leave me alone.

This was the intro to mounted combat.

The first horse is free!

All you have to do to complete the quest is to go though what is essentially war steed driver’s ed.  Drive around the track successfully, then drive around between some flags, then even more flags, then do a tiny bit of hitting a target while moving, and you have your license to operate a war steed and are set loose on the green field of Rohan.

Driving between some flags

The main thing to get used to with the war steed is that, unlike “normal” mounts in the game up to this point, physics exists for these horses.  They don’t start, stop, and turn 180 degrees on a dime.  Instead you have to build up speed, plan your turns, and moderate your forward motion to stop where you plan to.  There is also a whole range of mounted combat skills to manage when you are mounted.

My mount combat skills… some levels down the road

On completion I was given a Goldilocks choice of mounts.

Make your choice…

The choices say light, medium, and heavy, but then also have names (courser, rouncey, and destruer) in the description that I can’t recall ever being mentioned elsewhere and which are obscure enough in equestrian lore that light, medium, and heavy are more useful for most circumstances.

And, of course, there was a link to the LOTRO store if you cared to spend some money on upgrading your mount.  Sure, fine, as long as I don’t HAVE to spend money.

In addition to skills there is a whole talent tree devoted to your new war steed.

Horse talents be horse talents… again, some time after I started

I keep forgetting to apply the talent points, not that it makes much of a difference.  I keep earning xp for the mount, even when not mounted.  The game keeps telling me it could have been even more had I just bothered to mount up.

Would have been more had you been mounted

The problem is… I don’t want to.  I tried for a bit, just to see if there was anything about it I enjoyed.

Out in the field fighting mounted

The problem is… I don’t find mounted combat fun and, as I oft complain, I have spent many levels learning how to play my hunter in the most lazy and half-assed way… unless mobs are at my level, or signature, barbed shot and double shot generally do the job… and I have zero interest in bypassing whatever skill/knowledge I have acquired to learn what is essentially a new class.

This is especially so when most of the time being mounted does not confer anything in the way of advantage.  It certainly doesn’t on the east side of Rohan, where most mobs are on the ground just like you.  If there is any mob density at all you will end up aggroing mobs by accident as you race around trying to get in a max power shot, so you as like as not will end up in a tight, low impact circle fight that takes longer than just dismounting and shooting the mob.

And even when you get to the west side of Rohan and there are a bunch of mounted mobs… riding in circles and getting caught on trees or other bits of terrain… things aren’t any better mounted.  Also, the game gave me a skill to smack mounted mobs with that robs them of any advantage they might have had.

If you want to role play as a horse lord, who am I to say “nay?”  But I was a hunter for something like 80 levels before I showed up and will continue to be one for the next 60 or 70 levels, or however long I last.

So I gave up on mounted combat pretty fast.

However, I do still keep my war steed on my hot bar next to my old mount.  Mounted combat may be unappealing, but the mount itself does have some advantages.

To start with, the war steed is fast.  I have auto-run mapped to the “R” key in pretty much all my MMOs now (thanks to Word of Tanks and because I rarely have a need to “reply” to anybody) so I mount up and hit “R” and the war steed surges forward until it is running much more quickly than my old school mount.

Granted, it isn’t that useful in town or any location where you need to make turns down narrow paths.  But out in the open… and Rohan is nothing if not open… it is the fastest way to get places short of a swift travel option at a stable master.

On top of that, since it is meant for combat it doesn’t throw you off if you ride too close to some mob and take a couple of hits.  If you want to blitz through some hostiles and get away, the war steed is the choice.  Sure, some mounted mobs will chase you for a long way, but you can go go go.

So, in an actual summary:

• Good:
  • Fast durable mount for travel
  • Not too hard to master steering and throttle control
  • Customization options
  • Skill tree, if you’re into that sort of thing
• Bad:
  • Combat basically requires you to learn a new class
  • Doesn’t kill mobs faster than being on the ground
  • Nothing shows server lag like going full speed

I am not sure I have been putting my horsie skill points into the right skills, but despite to using it in combat I have managed to get my mount to level 40 already.

Back in the 90s…

I should probably dress him up a bit.  I have been given some basic stuff to use.

What is the level cap for mounts?  I am sure it says somewhere on the wiki… but I have to admit, I haven’t been interested enough to look.

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