I've been playing Lotro since early release, went through the transition EU -> US and enjoyed the game despite that the main activity of the game, combat, is outdated and just plain dull. The combat-rooting system was outdated in 2007 already when Lotro was released, because Vanguard and DDO already at that time brought movement-during-casting combat style. Unfortunately, LOTRO went completely other way than the other game built on the same engine (DDO) to decrease the business risk of trying to be different. I can understand that. However, it's 2013, and most major recent releases (such as Guild Wars 2 or The Secret World), are turning the combat into much more movement oriented. Both of these games do not root your character to the ground even during casting and lots of fights and bosses are designed around that idea. You have to keep damaging the boss or healing sekf/others while avoiding / dodging hostile AoE's or other abilities at the same time. Which makes the combat much more FLUID, DYNAMIC and SKILL-BASED. It's no longer only about perfect rotation and spamming the same 3-4 abilities while standing still, such as it is in LOTRO unfortunately.
Turbine already took ideas from GW2 and TSW (such as sharing experience for mob kills / no mob tagging / auto-looting), and in my opinion, it's time to change this painfully slow paced and static combat into dynamic one. Design bosses around movement, start balancing classes for such change and adjust the engine to facilitate this type of combat. Arguably, combat was and still is the most critized aspect of the game, and I fail to understand, why this otherwise beautiful game is not getting enough attention by Turbine to implement a new and modern type of combat, which doesn't feel low-budget and outdated (like it is now).
I don't see how would anyone favour -- to be rooted in place while casting -- instead of being able to move around (at normal speed or maybe slighly slower) (well, maybe some do, but I haven't hear a reasonable explanation, why). "You cannot do that while moving" message should be the feature of the past.
Turbine already took ideas from GW2 and TSW (such as sharing experience for mob kills / no mob tagging / auto-looting), and in my opinion, it's time to change this painfully slow paced and static combat into dynamic one. Design bosses around movement, start balancing classes for such change and adjust the engine to facilitate this type of combat. Arguably, combat was and still is the most critized aspect of the game, and I fail to understand, why this otherwise beautiful game is not getting enough attention by Turbine to implement a new and modern type of combat, which doesn't feel low-budget and outdated (like it is now).
I don't see how would anyone favour -- to be rooted in place while casting -- instead of being able to move around (at normal speed or maybe slighly slower) (well, maybe some do, but I haven't hear a reasonable explanation, why). "You cannot do that while moving" message should be the feature of the past.