What's New In LOTRO In The New Expansion "Riders of Rohan"
 | Many changes and new additions have brought to the game with the latest expansion "Riders of Rohan". Of course, if you want to read everything about it, it'd best to read the patch notes of this expansion. But just in case you don't want to go through all the long page, here's a condensed post regarding the most significant changes and additions to the game. 1. New region - East Rohan. This new region is made of 6 new zones: The Wold, The East Wall, Norcrofts, Entwash Vale, The Eaves of Fangorn, and Sutcrofts. To start questing in these new zones, you can simply follow the epic book quests, beginning with Volume III, Book 7, given by Galadriel in Caras Galadhon. The book quests will take you to the northern part of The East Wall. However, you can begin questing in Rohan, at the Wold as well, at Langhold. In addition to the new zones, the maximum level of a LOTRO character has been increased to 85. |
2. Mounted combat. A new combat feature added to the game, along with special horses (warsteeds) and special legendary items (bridles) is mounted combat. You are introduced to the mounted combat and also receive a warsteed when you reach Harwick. The tutorial quests for mounted combat is given there by Seoca (38.8S,52.6W).
There are 3 types of warsteeds:
- Light War-Steed (or Courser) - which are, as the term suggests, fast, easy to maneuver, but have low armor and endurance. These are best suited for tactical and ranged classes;
- Medium War-Steed (or Rouncey) - balanced mount, not as maneuvrable as the Courser and not as fast, but with a higher amount of armor and endurance;
- Heavy War-Steed (or Destrier) - mount suited for tanks, and for melee combat, and survivability;
Mounts have a level-up system and there's also a skill tree affiliated to the mount, so depending on the role you want to play in a mounted combat, you should train the right points, getting more endurance, more damage, more speed or armor etc.
Due to the mounted combat introduction, the looting of corpses has also changed. Whenever you defeat an enemy, the loot is automatically picked up and held in a "pending" space, and you have to pick it up from that space within an hour, otherwise it will disappear.
3. New types of quests. Questing has changed a little bit, and along with the normal quests and daily quests that you could get from the NPCs before, "pop-up" quests have been added. These are just the same as other quests, however you automatically receive them as you enter a certain area, with the condition of having a quest that is related to them. Also, you can receive quests now when defeating enemies, quests which usually require you to defeat a certain number of the same type of enemies as the one that gave you the quest. These quests are either automatically completed as you finish with the objectives, or you turn them in a certain NPCs. Several daily quests are also pop-up quests.
Of course, since mounted combat has been introduced, quests that required a warsteed have been introduced as well. Therefore, you will have to practice your mounted combat skills and level up your warsteed, to be able to complete these quests.
The Hytbold quests are also to be reminded here. These quests actually require you to rebuild the town of Hytbold. They're daily quests which require you to help various townsfolk in various towns across East Rohan. By completing these dailies, you get a new type of currency, Tokens of Hytbold, which can be used to purchase new gear, which brings me to the next tag of this post.
4. New gear. Each LOTRO class can purchase at least one type of blue, raid level, armor set from certain NPCs in Hytbold, via Hytbold tokens. However, to get that set, you will have to do quite some questing because the armor pieces aren't that cheap and the amount of Tokens of Hytbold that you can acquire per day is limited (to 25 or so).
There are many other major changes of course, including class revamps, Ettenmoors revamp, new crafting etc., but as a general idea, the 4 aspects mentioned above are the essence of the Rohan expansion.
