Essences and their troubles

[GithlithMonaghan]

Hi

I wanted to talk about the new essence-system which I do like in its general setting. But it has quite a few problems. Things that may not have been thought through well enough or rather seem unfinished. Here's my early list, maybe I'll find more stuff to consider. Maybe some of these are completely wrong.

- There's too little slotted gear in the game. So what use is a rather high droprate for essences if you have to work for days to actually get just one single piece of slotted gear to put it. Mostly: What use is an essence of lower levels if there's no gear at all to put it in?
- There's 4 different tiers of essences (yellow, purple, teal, orange). Purple, teal and orange work together. You can upgrade purple essences to either teal or orange. That makes sense and works as a whole. But yellow essences seem weirdly off. They drop. You can put them into your slotted gear, but there's no way of upgrading them. I think, they should be included into the whole picture - there should be standard recipes to upgrade yellow essences.
- It's fair enough that we need raredrop- or shop-scrolls to remove essences from our gear in order to use them differently. But it doesn't make sense that we can't overwrite filled slots with different essences just the way we can do it with our LI-relics. This seems unfinished.
- I don't understand why you can only find armour-pieces with essence-slots but no jewelery, off-hand-weapons or cloaks. Seems unfinished too.
- The stat-difference between slotted and classic gear seems too big. Unless you want to remove classic gear completely in the long run.
- Those teal flasks you need to upgrade your purple essences drop far too little. The costs for recipes, crit-thingy and the rarity of purple essences is high enough so we don't need another obstacle before getting what we want. Since you need 4 essences per gear-slot - multiplicated by 6 that is 24 times you need to do this per char. I find it very hard to get 24 teal or orange essences even without the teal flask. And I don't find things very hard too often in this game - meaning I'm rather long-suffering with content. A very good farmer. But this is pretty much beyond what I feel I can reach.

Some things to consider for you devs maybe. Hope it's helpful and understandable even if my english may not be perfect.

cheers

[NaktiesKarys]

And please, do make essences stack. Currently if I tier5 Essence of Might and loot another - I have 2 tier5 Essences of might in my vault.
And my vault is not endelss. Please, please, make them stack like we have LI runes, almost anything!

[GithlithMonaghan]

And please, do make essences stack. Currently if I tier5 Essence of Might and loot another - I have 2 tier5 Essences of might in my vault.
And my vault is not endelss. Please, please, make them stack like we have LI runes, almost anything!

At least on my bank they stack.

[Scirocco]

Only the level 100 purple essences (Major Essence) can be used in the crafting recipes for the upgrade to a teal or crit orange (Supreme Essence).

I agree that the Minor and lower level Major Essences need an upgrade path. I suggest a barter NPC that takes 5 (or so) of a type of essence to make one of the next level.

If you are having problems with stacking, check the i-level to make sure it's the same.

[Warmutkan]

Only identical items stack, and in the case of essences, that means that only essences of the same level and stats will stack with one another. Of the 19 essences I now have in my vault, only 6 are in stacks, all of 2s and 3s, meaning a huge amount of space is being taken up while we wait for the essence system to be finished. Right now essences are as common and useless as LI drops: I am getting increasingly tempted to vendor them because they serve me no purpose.

[Thakman]

Things that may not have been thought through well enough or rather seem unfinished. Here's my early list, maybe I'll find more stuff to consider.

The Devs did specifically state that the Essence system is much more robust than what we are seeing with U14. The backend has a ton of room to grow and is coded in a way to make additions and changes for feasible. Their primary reasoning for this was to roll the system out slowly and fix small problems as they develop before the turn into big problems.(look at the LI system for their reasoning)

So, all your suggestions look good and I look forward to seeing how this system fleshes out.

[Kerr_Avon]

Why do we need essences at all? Everything was fine the way it was. This game is becoming less and less like The Lord of the Rings day by day in that it's getting too much about improving kit and less about actual LotR lore and exploring Middle-Earth. I think idle programmers are so fed up with twiddling their thumbs that they introduce a lot of unwanted and unnecessary "dross". Nothing's simple anymore and it's getting too complicated, so much so that new players must be totally bewildered by it all. Old players must be thinking, "For goodness sake, whatever next? Can't they leave things alone?!"

[Zeblot1]

essences confuse me. they're just a pain in the butt.

[GithlithMonaghan]

Here's another thing that I personally don't consider a good idea, but there may be other opinions on this point:

- You can add your mainstat on each and every slot if you want to.

Now why is that a problem? I think the game will get hard to balance if some players choose for almost double the dps than others. Mostly: As tactical class you get tactical mitigation for free if you go with your mainstat. And if you get critical success with your mainstat-essences you even get some vita along. For other classes there may be less resistance. But say some tanks completely go after vita: They will outmorale other players by 10-20 times. I just sense big time problems with this. It's gonna create too much difference between players. I think any stat should be reduced to 1 slot per item - or maybe two.

[Othniel]

Here's another thing that I personally don't consider a good idea, but there may be other opinions on this point:

- You can add your mainstat on each and every slot if you want to.

Now why is that a problem? I think the game will get hard to balance if some players choose for almost double the dps than others. Mostly: As tactical class you get tactical mitigation for free if you go with your mainstat. And if you get critical success with your mainstat-essences you even get some vita along. For other classes there may be less resistance. But say some tanks completely go after vita: They will outmorale other players by 10-20 times. I just sense big time problems with this. It's gonna create too much difference between players. I think any stat should be reduced to 1 slot per item - or maybe two.

I think the system will more-or-less police itself. If you have tanks that stack only defensive essences and don't put any of their main stat on, their DPS will suffer, and they will have a harder time holding aggro. Similarly, if a DPSer stacks all main stat and crit, but no vitality, that character will become very weak defensively and die a lot.

Overall, I like the system, but I think the biggest hole right now is that there is no reliable way to get yellow and purple quality essences outside of the Dol Amroth essence box barter NPC. They are too rare for drops in order to gather the 24 you need in a decent period of time in order to fill a full 6-piece suit of armor. I think that at bare minimum the yellow (lowest) quality essences should be able to be crafted. I would suggest that they be added to guild recipe NPCs and use the minor rep emblem, which has a one-day cooldown. Purple essence recipes could use the three-day cooldown rep emblem. I mentioned this idea in the suggestions board, but I think it probably fits better here for feedback.

[GithlithMonaghan]

I think the system will more-or-less police itself. If you have tanks that stack only defensive essences and don't put any of their main stat on, their DPS will suffer, and they will have a harder time holding aggro. Similarly, if a DPSer stacks all main stat and crit, but no vitality, that character will become very weak defensively and die a lot.

Overall, I like the system, but I think the biggest hole right now is that there is no reliable way to get yellow and purple quality essences outside of the Dol Amroth essence box barter NPC. They are too rare for drops in order to gather the 24 you need in a decent period of time in order to fill a full 6-piece suit of armor. I think that at bare minimum the yellow (lowest) quality essences should be able to be crafted. I would suggest that they be added to guild recipe NPCs and use the minor rep emblem, which has a one-day cooldown. Purple essence recipes could use the three-day cooldown rep emblem. I mentioned this idea in the suggestions board, but I think it probably fits better here for feedback.

I find purple essence-drops too rare, but the yellow ones aren't. I got about 2-3 each day up to now. More than I could use anyways. It's just a shame that I can't upgrade them at all.

I don't think that the system will police itself, since you call your mainstat like this because it's more powerful than the others. And at least in the tactical cases survivability is bound to the mainstat. So you get both: Mitigation and DPS with just one stat. You only have to worry about your morale. But you can still put 3 times will on your items and once morale or vitality. If you want to let players use as much mainstat as they want, they might have to reconsider at least the stats of will where you get defence and dps at once.

[Aedfrith]

I find purple essence-drops too rare, but the yellow ones aren't. I got about 2-3 each day up to now. More than I could use anyways. It's just a shame that I can't upgrade them at all.

I don't think that the system will police itself, since you call your mainstat like this because it's more powerful than the others. And at least in the tactical cases survivability is bound to the mainstat. So you get both: Mitigation and DPS with just one stat. You only have to worry about your morale. But you can still put 3 times will on your items and once morale or vitality. If you want to let players use as much mainstat as they want, they might have to reconsider at least the stats of will where you get defence and dps at once.

Agree - and remember, vitality <<<< raw morale now (a bad decision taken with Update 13). The most important stat for essence armours these days seems to be critical defence, given the stupid criticals being dished out in instances (warden with capped mits and crit def 60% still gets hit for 14k; imagine the same base damage on a squishy - 1-shotted and then some).

[Dunford]

"I don't understand why you can only find armour-pieces with essence-slots but no jewelery, off-hand-weapons or cloaks. Seems unfinished too."

I think this is true because the essence system is designed specifically for armor. We have the LI system for weapons/accessories. I do think cloaks should be added to the essence system. Not sure if they plan on expanding the LI or essence system to jewelry, have other plans for enhanced jewelry, or do not feel the need to enhance the jewelry system at all.

[Berth]

gg putting (ingredients) for endgame equip into landscape mobs again... the lvl 100 corsair camps are filled with multic-account afk-lm-pets again.
Horse-lord recipes all over again

[robbie1435]

gg putting (ingredients) for endgame equip into landscape mobs again... the lvl 100 corsair camps are filled with multic-account afk-lm-pets again.
Horse-lord recipes all over again

Little Hint: Farm Bells of Dale. All mobs drop stuff in there and also have the same chance to drop an essence as landscape mobs .

[Kerr_Avon]

What if essences could be crafted by Cooks who join the Cooks' Guild? It would perhaps make up for the fact that Cooks don't have any top notch legendary recipes.

[HoarseDev]

Yup. First time out this system is intentionally getting a soft-launch treatment. By this I mean that it is intentionally limited so we can see what players do with it before we go nuts. We've got more stuff waiting to go out and tweaks to make on what is out there already.

There will be other gear with sockets.
The removal scroll will become more readily available.
There will be more types of essences.
Stats will need balancing.

Keep the feedback coming.

[GithlithMonaghan]

Yup. First time out this system is intentionally getting a soft-launch treatment. By this I mean that it is intentionally limited so we can see what players do with it before we go nuts. We've got more stuff waiting to go out and tweaks to make on what is out there already.

There will be other gear with sockets.
The removal scroll will become more readily available.
There will be more types of essences.
Stats will need balancing.

Keep the feedback coming.

I know about the soft launch but I figured: What's the use of a soft launch if you don't get any feedback?

Most of all I think it should be possible to overwrite essences the way you do it with relics - without removal scroll. You just lose the ones that already were in there. Is something like that being planned?

and remember, vitality <<<< raw morale now (a bad decision taken with Update 13). The most important stat for essence armours these days seems to be critical defence, given the stupid criticals being dished out in instances (warden with capped mits and crit def 60% still gets hit for 14k; imagine the same base damage on a squishy - 1-shotted and then some).

I don't completely agree with that. The difference between vita and raw morale may be a bit too high. But it's the only slot that actually lowers the quality of slotted gear compared to normal gear. On all other slots you'll get your stats improved easily. So I think this may be balancing gear alright. I also appreciate the fact that you have to really decide between the raw morale stat and vitality - whether you just need the morale or the whole resistance/mitigation-stuff to go with it. Just as you do with your mainstats vs. raw mastery. Don't know if you noticed but I think willl/might/agility-numbers count by factor 8 towards mastery, no longer 10. So if you go with the raw mastery you'll get more dps (at least for those mainstats that don't improve your critical rating - I couldn't calculate it for the others). However, the thinking about stats has become more complicated and interesting again this way. Which is a very good thing. And the soft launch with only little slotted gear isn't bad either. So everyone can get used to the new way of thinking in a slow way.

[Aedfrith]

I also appreciate the fact that you have to really decide between the raw morale stat and vitality - whether you just need the morale or the whole resistance/mitigation-stuff to go with it.

But here's the clincher, Githlith - vitality no longer contributes to mitigations, stupidly. Reference (since I'm away from LOTRO right now): http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Vitality . Just OOCMR and Resistance.

[aardnebby]

But here's the clincher, Githlith - vitality no longer contributes to mitigations, stupidly. Reference (since I'm away from LOTRO right now): http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Vitality . Just OOCMR and Resistance.

And the resistance is fairly irrelevant. I for one will be prioritizing raw morale over vit since vit is basically worthless now. Well done devs! Give out 2k of free vit with item stats revamp, then shocked at how overpowered everyone is you remove mitigations from it so vit is worthless except for morale bonus. why didnt you just keep the mits on vitality, but reduce the items vit bonus by 75% and give out raw morale instead? that way you wouldnt have to re-write vitalitys effects and utterly destroy tanking mitigation builds and then have to give more fate contributions...

Its like rather than thinking things through you are just trying to patch one mistake with another badly thought out knee jerk...

[robbie1435]

And the resistance is fairly irrelevant. I for one will be prioritizing raw morale over vit since vit is basically worthless now. Well done devs! Give out 2k of free vit with item stats revamp, then shocked at how overpowered everyone is you remove mitigations from it so vit is worthless except for morale bonus. why didnt you just keep the mits on vitality, but reduce the items vit bonus by 75% and give out raw morale instead? that way you wouldnt have to re-write vitalitys effects and utterly destroy tanking mitigation builds and then have to give more fate contributions...

Its like rather than thinking things through you are just trying to patch one mistake with another badly thought out knee jerk...

I think a better way to approach this rather than with a hostile attitude would be to point it out and give your feedback.

Tactical Mitigation should be put be on Vitalty, but the bonus should be about half of what it was Pre-U13.

[aardnebby]

I think a better way to approach this rather than with a hostile attitude would be to point it out and give your feedback.

Tactical Mitigation should be put be on Vitalty, but the bonus should be about half of what it was Pre-U13.

I would not consider my attitude hostile, more despairing. I made a number of suggestions in Bullroarer forums when the change was first announced. But I am sure it was quicker to change the effects of vitality than to re-write all those items, right? So it was a matter of expediency that has resulted in a new problem now. As I predicted back then (though I was unaware of essenses at the time, I just figured it would affect peoples gear choices).

[Aedfrith]

I would not consider my attitude hostile, more despairing. I made a number of suggestions in Bullroarer forums when the change was first announced. But I am sure it was quicker to change the effects of vitality than to re-write all those items, right? So it was a matter of expediency that has resulted in a new problem now. As I predicted back then (though I was unaware of essenses at the time, I just figured it would affect peoples gear choices).

Same here. Exactly the same.

[q945]

Mitigations and stat contributions are a complete mess right now.

My RK (light armour class) has better mitigations than my hunter (medium armour class). This is completely ridiculous because the only point of armour is to contribute to mitigations!

With the massive amount of will on my RK I get a huge bonus to Tac Mit and I'm able to dedicate some virtue slots to physical mitigation. On my hunter, in order to balance phys and tac mit I have to stack as much tac mit as possible and its still no where near my RK and I can't slot the virtues that contribute a lot to phys mit!

[RJFerret]

A former business partner of mine was one of the few people in the country to authenticate and repair Tiffany lampshades. He could drop molten lead solder on his hands without flinching, because the value of what was held in his hands was far more than his skin healing.

Why would heavy metal armour provide mitigations to fire? It would get hot quickly, hold the heat, and cause severe burning. Why would it mitigate poison? Trained heavy armour fighters wouldn't be accustomed to psychological nightmarish fear effects. Admittedly logically it would mitigate wounds.

Meanwhile light cloth armour insulates against heat, or burns away if severe enough. You can pull it up to cover your nose to filter poisonous fumes. Logically LMs, RKs, minis and the like would have trained psychologically given they inflict psychological fears. I suppose cloth would staunch wounds.

From a game-play perspective, it makes sense that some classes get a lot of one type of mitigation and need to supplement if they want another. It would make no sense for every class to have maximum of all mitigations, as then what stat would they need? How would they get hurt? We'd have the problem of the recent past where nobody got hurt, tanks/healers weren't needed, folks were running T2 group content solo, and the game got so boring people were leaving in droves.

Hunters are interesting as being ranged they simply avoid many tactical attacks by not being in the fray like mêlée classes, so need less tact mit.

Now, with essences, it's easy to get what you want, and the future of the system the devs have confirmed will have more items. IF you want your character to have high of both types of mitigations, you may do that, hopefully at the expense of mastery. Currently it's possible to have high mastery AND high mits, which makes me OP and sad.