Tell the Community?

[Tide]

personally I don't think much of these CM threads. They are puffy and ultimately create bad expectations in the community.

And FWIW that is a good list of enhancements, but it's over 3 years in a subscription based game. There's a lot of cosmetic and non-gameplay stuff included. I don't think people care as much about the number of items feedback threads seem to create other than the handful of meaningful changes that definitely impact gameplay.

On that note, how's that LFG Tool revamp coming? Nov/Dec Sprint? Not likely I know.

[coot]

No change is ever made based on one source of feedback. Collecting feedback is a lengthy process that involves many different sources. The forums, survey's, data mining, player focus groups, any number of things. You'll also find we tend to ask the same, or similar questions several times. We do this to help refine the feedback.

With that said, there have been several times when the community team threads have been used to verify or check against other feedback. In fact, we have made adjustments to the game based on these threads. But it would be inaccurate to say even those changes were made entirely based on the community team threads.

Remember, what you are seeing is a result, after a handful of hours (roughly 4 hours at this point), of a small portion of the player base who chose to express an opinion. That's a mighty long way from any kind of majority.

You could have stopped with the first 5 words.

[ArahadEketta]

You could have stopped with the first 5 words.

Do you really believe that there have been no changes made to this game that did not come from player suggestions?

[Altwine]

Nice post. This is exactly why we pull data and feedback from multiple sources. To help gather insight into the 'why' as you put it. It's also why it can take a significant amount of time to gather, collate, and parse all forms of feedback into a clear picture of the true majority view. Sometimes, it even takes asking the same questions, or refined versions of the same questions, a number of times.

Sapience, I'm not one who thinks the TtCTs are some grand conspiracy to keep us thinking you guys are going to make the changes we suggest; I honestly think Turbine is interested in keeping the players (customers) happy, as any business should.

What I'm afraid of is that sometimes changes are made that, while giving us something we requested, they also take something away, or put in place something we didnt want. A good example that has already been mentioned is the scrolls of empowerment. Players requested a way to upgrade legacy tiers, and Turbine provided that. However, LIs were made to ID with lower tiers, and the scrolls were given a very high price (1900 marks? 75 DG medallions? come on...).

That kind of thing does not equal fun; it mostly (at least for me) results in frustration. So, while I quite honestly dislike the current state of the LI system (and itemization and radiance), and would like to see a change, I'm almost afraid of what the change may be.

I understand Turbine is in the business of keeping players playing (and paying) as long as possible, but that should be done in a way that is fun. There has been multiple suggestions in the TtCT threads and within the forums on how the system could be improved. Many of them would still require the same time investment as the current system, but without the "grindy" feel.

If I could summarize how the LI system should work (IMHO) it would be: effort (not luck)= rewards, and effort should not = grind.

[LavenderFire]

What I'm afraid of is that sometimes changes are made that, while giving us something we requested, they also take something away, or put in place something we didnt want.

That sums up this thread pretty well. Changes are being made, just not implemented as well as we would like. On the flip side though, it's also easy to ask/see it from the player side but probably be crazy to try to figure out how to implement it from the back end without screwing other parts of the game up.

1900 marks isn't too bad for a Scroll of Empowerment if LI's were more permanent...but as of now, it only appeals to the min/maxers. I agree though, that some of the medallion trade ratios are ridiculous.

Some grinds are bearable like virtues, which can be odious at times but I know that the bonuses will still be there come future expansions.

And about removing certain legacies...I miss Knives Out for burglars. =( The only dagger I had with that legacy got deconned because I ran out of LI slots...*sniff*

[delphinius81]

Sapience, I'm not one who thinks the TtCTs are some grand conspiracy to keep us thinking you guys are going to make the changes we suggest; I honestly think Turbine is interested in keeping the players (customers) happy, as any business should.

What I'm afraid of is that sometimes changes are made that, while giving us something we requested, they also take something away, or put in place something we didnt want. A good example that has already been mentioned is the scrolls of empowerment. Players requested a way to upgrade legacy tiers, and Turbine provided that. However, LIs were made to ID with lower tiers, and the scrolls were given a very high price (1900 marks? 75 DG medallions? come on...).

That kind of thing does not equal fun; it mostly (at least for me) results in frustration. So, while I quite honestly dislike the current state of the LI system (and itemization and radiance), and would like to see a change, I'm almost afraid of what the change may be.

I understand Turbine is in the business of keeping players playing (and paying) as long as possible, but that should be done in a way that is fun. There has been multiple suggestions in the TtCT threads and within the forums on how the system could be improved. Many of them would still require the same time investment as the current system, but without the "grindy" feel.

If I could summarize how the LI system should work (IMHO) it would be: effort (not luck)= rewards, and effort should not = grind.

I think they may have underestimated (or ignored) the replay value of alts. I'm going to pull out fake numbers here, but only to prove a point. Let's assume the Turbine powers that be decided that on average, a player should be spending 100 hours with the LI system. The system as it currently stands says that for each character, 100 hours of time investment is needed from the time you find the LI you want to max out all of the tiers. This includes running multiple skirmishes and instances to get your scrolls of empowerment. Now let's say you have 2 other alts you like to play as well. This would mean three times the time investment (300 hours) in order to get all of your alts geared up.

The problem is that a 100 hour investment is what was intended, but in reality it became far more than that because the thought of doing 100 hours for each alt is quite overwhelming.

Now, let's consider another approach. Use the data mining tools to determine how many characters with LIs each account has on average based on weekly play-time. On average, lotro players play 20hrs/wk (this was stated at a panel I was at recently, but I can't pull up a resource for it). So break up those groups into people playing <15hrs/wk, 15-30, >30. Determine the average number of characters at LI usage level people have in those groups.

I'd bet group 1 has 1 character, group 2 has 2-3, and group 3 has 3+. Design the LI system for group that has the most representation (probably group 2). Consider how long you think players in that group should spend across all characters with the LI system. So if 100 hrs is the desired amount, then it would translate into about 30-50 hours worth of work per character.

Here is the magic part. Since it doesn't take as long to max out your LI for one character, you are more likely to do it for your alts. You end up spending the same amount of time (the 100 hours) playing with the LI system, but now you have more characters involved in the process. For those people in group 3, where they have far more characters, well they are actually spending MORE than the desired 100 hours now. Each additional alt is additional time spent in the LI system beyond the desired amount. A person with 5 L65 players would be spending 50 to 150 hours MORE than expected.

This has added benefits though. The more alts outfitted, the more alts capable of jumping into end-game content. There is a broader pool of players for groups to pick from. This actually helps the health of the game!

The solution for a system that feels like a grind is to make it take less time to reach the desired end-state. For radiance, this means less instance runs to get the gear. For LIs, this means less instances/skirmishes to get empowerment scrolls. Forgetting all of the systemic problems with LIs and radiance, reducing the amount of time it takes to obtain them would go miles for handling complaints.

Half the medallion cost for radiance gear. Half the medallion/skirmish cost for scrolls of empowerment. Makes SA symbols drop 15-20% of the time. Right now players might be spending 100 hours to get 1 character situated, and at the end of the day they are so burnt out they don't want to repeat the process with alts. If you halve the cost to outfit a character, a player won't think it's such a pain to repeat the process with an alt. All of a sudden, you have replay in the system at the alt level, which is where it was supposed to be in the first place.

[PrairieDog]

But i imagine if enough people vote for something the change will happen...but i'm being optimistic. The excuse if something doesn't implemented would be that not enough people participate on the forums to classify something as the majority of players. It should be looked at more like a study when people want to what percent of people do this or this, they don't go door to door asking everyone. They get several people maybe 100 or so from different walks of life and ask them the questions. Then use what ever percent of people wanted one thing over the other as a prediction that if they did go door to door they'd get about the same results.

Thats what i view the forums and the people who participate in them as the 100 people being asked the questions whose answers should be perceived as what the community would want if every single person voted.

You should definitely NOT view the forums as a representative sample of the player base. The forum comments are written by a SELF-SELECTED group of people, which means you cannot know whether the forums posters are representative of the player base as a whole; in fact, it is highly likely they are a biased sample. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biased_sample under "Self-selection bias" for a better explanation.

[Altwine]

...
Here is the magic part. Since it doesn't take as long to max out your LI for one character, you are more likely to do it for your alts. You end up spending the same amount of time (the 100 hours) playing with the LI system, but now you have more characters involved in the process. For those people in group 3, where they have far more characters, well they are actually spending MORE than the desired 100 hours now. Each additional alt is additional time spent in the LI system beyond the desired amount. A person with 5 L65 players would be spending 50 to 150 hours MORE than expected.
...

I agree. I have 7 toons, though only two 65s and one other already in the LI grind. I dread going through the process with all 7.

That's something I dread regarding any changes they may be planning. What would they take away/nerf, how bad is the grind going to be then, and how much worse would it be multiplied by 7.

[Earendilyon]

I'm at home, but I can list quite a few off the top of my head. Mostly because one of the things the community team does is advocate for player suggestions to enter the development cycle...

((Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.))

[GregJL]

Do you really believe that there have been no changes made to this game that did not come from player suggestions?

Apparently the poster believes no changes have ever been made at all, considering the first five words were "No changes are ever made".

[ArahadEketta]

Apparently the poster believes no changes have ever been made at all, considering the first five words were "No changes are ever made".

Oh, yeah, I forgot that there have been no content updates or Expansions since LotRO:SoA was released.

[lwk1138]

Someone asked if I play. Yes I do (and have for a long time, even before I started working for Turbine). My entire family does. Between us we have almost every class to 65. I have 2 level 65s (LM and Hunter) and a third (Guardian) I am taking to 65. I actually have every class to at least 20 and several past 30.. I also have 3 creeps (Warg, Black Arrow, Warleader).

So, I don't know if you can answer my question, in fact I'm sure you can't, but... Do you have any similar frustrations that we are sharing in these threads? I can't imagine you feel like all the systems in game are pure perfection. I'd be really curious to see how would you respond to some of these "Tell the Community" threads as a player?

[Sapience]

I finally found the thead I was thinking of earlier when I posted my list.

A partial list from that post (I removed the duplicates from my original list).

• Housing being in before the first expansion.
• PvMP being in at launch
• Player controlled mounts being in at launch, instead of with Rohan expansion.
• Captains having heralds. Then having the choice between heralds and the (original) standards.
• The Loremaster having more than just the raven and the bear.
• Not losing your house the day you run out of rent (a much debated topic still).
• Quests being re-rated for difficulty. Particularly some instances.
• Awesome tools for reporting and ignoring gold-seller spammers.
• The ABC music system.
• Cosmetic Outfits
• Barbers
• Ability to link stuff from your crafting recipes to chat or into the preview system.
• Ability to enter numbers in the split stack function
• Purchase options at vendors including partial stacks, fill stacks, and manually entered amounts.
• Home recall for all characters on an account
• Scholar node tracking
• Horse dismount via the horse icon
• Pets are not dismissed when you summon your horse
• Keyrings

You can read the rest in the original thread.

[Nymphonic]

I finally found the thead I was thinking of earlier when I posted my list.

A partial list from that post (I removed the duplicates from my original list).

• Housing being in before the first expansion.
• PvMP being in at launch
• Player controlled mounts being in at launch, instead of with Rohan expansion.
• Captains having heralds. Then having the choice between heralds and the (original) standards.
• The Loremaster having more than just the raven and the bear.
• Not losing your house the day you run out of rent (a much debated topic still).
• Quests being re-rated for difficulty. Particularly some instances.
• Awesome tools for reporting and ignoring gold-seller spammers.
• The ABC music system.
• Cosmetic Outfits
• Barbers
• Ability to link stuff from your crafting recipes to chat or into the preview system.
• Ability to enter numbers in the split stack function
• Purchase options at vendors including partial stacks, fill stacks, and manually entered amounts.
• Home recall for all characters on an account
• Scholar node tracking
• Horse dismount via the horse icon
• Pets are not dismissed when you summon your horse
• Keyrings

You can read the rest in the original thread.

I love it when someone lays down cold hard facts to squash a conspiracy!

I've been with this game from launch day and I saw the threads asking for just about everything on this list. There is no way someone can convince me that the community is not listened to.

[Golledhel]

I finally found the thead I was thinking of earlier when I posted my list.

A partial list from that post (I removed the duplicates from my original list).

• Housing being in before the first expansion.
• PvMP being in at launch
• Player controlled mounts being in at launch, instead of with Rohan expansion.
• Captains having heralds. Then having the choice between heralds and the (original) standards.
• The Loremaster having more than just the raven and the bear.
• Not losing your house the day you run out of rent (a much debated topic still).
• Quests being re-rated for difficulty. Particularly some instances.
• Awesome tools for reporting and ignoring gold-seller spammers.
• The ABC music system.
• Cosmetic Outfits
• Barbers
• Ability to link stuff from your crafting recipes to chat or into the preview system.
• Ability to enter numbers in the split stack function
• Purchase options at vendors including partial stacks, fill stacks, and manually entered amounts.
• Home recall for all characters on an account
• Scholar node tracking
• Horse dismount via the horse icon
• Pets are not dismissed when you summon your horse
• Keyrings

You can read the rest in the original thread.

So basically, almost everything except the epic storyline(and the story-related stuff that comes with it) has been player suggested.

[Artanisul]

I finally found the thead I was thinking of earlier when I posted my list.

A partial list from that post (I removed the duplicates from my original list).

• Housing being in before the first expansion.
• PvMP being in at launch
• Player controlled mounts being in at launch, instead of with Rohan expansion.
• Captains having heralds. Then having the choice between heralds and the (original) standards.
• The Loremaster having more than just the raven and the bear.
• Not losing your house the day you run out of rent (a much debated topic still).
• Quests being re-rated for difficulty. Particularly some instances.
• Awesome tools for reporting and ignoring gold-seller spammers.
• The ABC music system.
• Cosmetic Outfits
• Barbers
• Ability to link stuff from your crafting recipes to chat or into the preview system.
• Ability to enter numbers in the split stack function
• Purchase options at vendors including partial stacks, fill stacks, and manually entered amounts.
• Home recall for all characters on an account
• Scholar node tracking
• Horse dismount via the horse icon
• Pets are not dismissed when you summon your horse
• Keyrings

You can read the rest in the original thread.

Looking at that list , and this is gonna sound just terrible, in most cases there is no reason what so ever that the community should have had to ask for the changes. I was counting down the list and over half are things that shouldn't have been left out in the first place.

Adding Dice to Monopoly after it ships because players asked for it is not to be given a pat on the back.

[GregJL]

Looking at that list , and this is gonna sound just terrible, in most cases there is no reason what so ever that the community should have had to ask for the changes. I was counting down the list and over half are things that shouldn't have been left out in the first place.

Adding Dice to Monopoly after it ships because players asked for it is not to be given a pat on the back.

You're right, it does sound terrible. Not surprising, though.

[Golledhel]

Looking at that list , and this is gonna sound just terrible, in most cases there is no reason what so ever that the community should have had to ask for the changes. I was counting down the list and over half are things that shouldn't have been left out in the first place.

Adding Dice to Monopoly after it ships because players asked for it is not to be given a pat on the back.

Point.

But keep in mind that many of those things could have been things Turbine would have implemented eventually whether they were suggested or not.

[0rdinary0wl]

I have to say the recent string of Tell the Community threads have given me a lot of hope for the future of LOTRO. Especially with the new Burglar thread today and it also mentioning they will eventually be asking about Creeps too. It seems to me like they are planning on making the next expansion really count. Lets hope they do.

[Altwine]

Looking at that list , and this is gonna sound just terrible, in most cases there is no reason what so ever that the community should have had to ask for the changes. I was counting down the list and over half are things that shouldn't have been left out in the first place.

Adding Dice to Monopoly after it ships because players asked for it is not to be given a pat on the back.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I have to agree. Also, most of the items on that list could be described as "fluff". It's kinda like counting things like festivals, lotteries, etc as content (and I'm not saying anyone has). That sort of thing is just window-dressing, meant to make the game slightly more appealing (which it does). It's not, however, a substitute for real content, or fixing systems that a great number of players (perhaps a great majority) want fixed.

I think most players, myself included, appreciate that Turbine has fixed/added those items, but I would rather have seen other issues addressed first.

[bigsix66]

Looking at that list , and this is gonna sound just terrible, in most cases there is no reason what so ever that the community should have had to ask for the changes. I was counting down the list and over half are things that shouldn't have been left out in the first place.

Adding Dice to Monopoly after it ships because players asked for it is not to be given a pat on the back.

If you've managed to play Monopoly for the past year without dice, I salute you.

[Kyrra_T]

I have to say the recent string of Tell the Community threads have given me a lot of hope for the future of LOTRO. Especially with the new Burglar thread today and it also mentioning they will eventually be asking about Creeps too. It seems to me like they are planning on making the next expansion really count. Lets hope they do.

So what you're saying that new content doesn't count as new content if you personally don't consider it to be 'quality' content and response to the community doesn't count if you, personally don't consider that what they heard was worth hearing?

What you're really saying is that absolutely nothing that Turbine says is going to satisfy you so why should they try?

[bigsix66]

I finally found the thead I was thinking of earlier when I posted my list.

A partial list from that post (I removed the duplicates from my original list).

• Housing being in before the first expansion.
• PvMP being in at launch
• Player controlled mounts being in at launch, instead of with Rohan expansion.
• Captains having heralds. Then having the choice between heralds and the (original) standards.
• The Loremaster having more than just the raven and the bear.
• Not losing your house the day you run out of rent (a much debated topic still).
• Quests being re-rated for difficulty. Particularly some instances.
• Awesome tools for reporting and ignoring gold-seller spammers.
• The ABC music system.
• Cosmetic Outfits
• Barbers
• Ability to link stuff from your crafting recipes to chat or into the preview system.
• Ability to enter numbers in the split stack function
• Purchase options at vendors including partial stacks, fill stacks, and manually entered amounts.
• Home recall for all characters on an account
• Scholar node tracking
• Horse dismount via the horse icon
• Pets are not dismissed when you summon your horse
• Keyrings

You can read the rest in the original thread.

I think making Death from Below a repeatable quest should also be on the list.

[Nymphonic]

You say that the features that Sapience's list has features that should have been included in the first place. That sounds like that's exactly the reason there is a suggestions forums for players...SUGGESTIONS!

At work I always ask my people for feedback on how to make things run smoother. Same thing here.

[bigsix66]

I think making Death from Below a repeatable quest should also be on the list.

Also, the change in the number of farming crit items needed (from three to one) for each field.