Creep Movement.

[OnnMacMahal]

You're assuming the "dead" space that is being skipped over by creeps has tons of freeps just hanging out in it waiting for fight.

This is partly a chicken/egg problem. With maps, why would freeps go to those locations? Creeps are likely to skip across the zone with maps, so freeps are more likely to camp map-in spots. With freeps moving directly to map-in spots, creeps are even less likely to waste time looking anywhere other than map-in spots for freeps.
Without maps, creeps are more likely to be moving across in-between spaces, the same way freeps have to cross open spaces. TR and Lugz rez locations still create a backstop of sorts, so you don't have to run all the way from grams when you die in a fight (assuming your side is pushing across the map) but the landscape between engagements and rez circles will not be always-skippable space. The faster March ability also means that physically running from a rez circle back to a fight is much faster than at any time in the past.

Maps and map quests were literally the reason why creeps go to HoarHollow, Arador's End, etc. So you want creeps to go to those areas, but you just removed the only reason why creeps go there??? . . . And nobody is coming out to the Moors to mainly PvE.

We're still working on some other plans to incentivize travelling to different corners of the map, but daily quests and their rewards still exist. The quest>map incentive is already basically moot for any reasonably veteran player (for many creeps, it's been moot for more than 14 years) and most new players don't have the resources to hold their own in PvP while questing to earn maps, so in that sense the quest>map incentive mostly promoted greenie creeps wandering around where they could be easily killed.

. . . freep rezzes are far more abundant and superior to creeps, and that gave the freeps the advantage in prolonged fights. Removing maps just made that issue 100x worse. No amount of run buffs is fixing that.

I agree. That's a class/skill balance problem, not a map problem. That's why we're continuing to work on improving creep skills, traits, and combat competency relative to freeps.

[Elaelin]

We're still working on some other plans to incentivize travelling to different corners of the map, but daily quests and their rewards still exist. The quest>map incentive is already basically moot for any reasonably veteran player (for many creeps, it's been moot for more than 14 years) and most new players don't have the resources to hold their own in PvP while questing to earn maps, so in that sense the quest>map incentive mostly promoted greenie creeps wandering around where they could be easily killed.

.

Just my two cents but why when there is so much broken in the Moors, break something else without a plan in place to fix it? It just does not make any sense. Hopefully, when you come up with ideas to fix the creep side of the Moors there will be creeps left on servers like Landy to participate in the new Moors experience. There are some very good folks on Landy that play both creep and freep. You might gain an understanding of small server PVP if you head over there and learn from those people. Most have years of experience in PVP and actually understand it quite well.

[Grey_Havens_Taxi]

SSG is removing Creep maps because a small number of Burglars camp GTR, GTA?

[Elaelin]

SSG is removing Creep maps because a small number of Burglars camp GTR, GTA?

You forgot to add: They have a plan to come up with a plan in the future to fix what they just broke.

[Kate00]

The quest>map incentive is already basically moot for any reasonably veteran player (for many creeps, it's been moot for more than 14 years) and most new players don't have the resources to hold their own in PvP while questing to earn maps, so in that sense the quest>map incentive mostly promoted greenie creeps wandering around where they could be easily killed.

Greenies don't have the resources so instead of fixing that you took away maps. What about the veteran players that hunt the quest locations looking for freeps hunting creeps?

Veteran players STILL do these quests. There's no map to hoarhollow. As a rank 15 I go there to hunt freeps looking to kill the greenies working on their map quests. I regularly see veteran freeps hunting creeps across the map outside of the map in locations looking for players rank 0-14 working on maps and/or quests.

On arkenstone I follow questing creeps all over the map to hunt freeps. I'm successful at it. I'm not sure why the devs believe that fights aren't happening outside of map locations. Please explain.

[Neinda]

The more things change the more they stay the same. Creep movement and maps are officially broken on purpose. Someday they will fix the problem.

[OnnMacMahal]

Greenies don't have the resources so instead of fixing that you took away maps. What about the veteran players that hunt the quest locations looking for freeps hunting creeps?

Veteran players STILL do these quests. There's no map to hoarhollow. As a rank 15 I go there to hunt freeps looking to kill the greenies working on their map quests. I regularly see veteran freeps hunting creeps across the map outside of the map in locations looking for players rank 0-14 working on maps and/or quests.

On arkenstone I follow questing creeps all over the map to hunt freeps. I'm successful at it. I'm not sure why the devs believe that fights aren't happening outside of map locations. Please explain.

We effectively took away maps, but we buffed March considerably. We didn't delete maps outright, and didn't increase the cooldowns without compensation.


There's only one quest that requires you to go to Hoarhallow which contributes to a map, so I don't think that supports your argument very well. You're saying creeps are so driven to earn maps that newbies (without maps, mind you) are picking up 'Ive Got a Theory' at TR and then slow-walking all the way to Hoarhallow to collect sacks of food, then hoofing it back to TR to work towards TR maps? The other TR quests can largely be completed in the Coldfells area, and the other Hoarhallow quests which actually require you to go there (collecting sacks of food & killing the mayor) are Dar-Gazag quests which don't contribute towards map deeds. If players have been doing these quests, it's not because they helped earn maps.

You even say above that 'veteran players still do these quests.' If veteran players (who already have all their maps) are completing the quests, their reasons for doing so are unrelated to earning maps. They are still perfectly capable of doing these quests, and their incentives for doing so are unchanged.

Greenies don't have the resources so instead of fixing that you took away maps

These are entirely unrelated. The reasons new creeps are not competitive have very little to do with whether they have maps, and much more to do with their stats, skills, and experience. While we can't help the latter, the September update added several skills to r0 creeps and lowered costs substantially for skills earned going from r0 to r5. Blessings, similarly, significantly increase the overall stat value a creep will have before they've earned all their passives and traits. Low-ranked creeps are substantially better-equipped nowadays than they were 6 months ago, and that has nothing to do with maps.

[Kate00]

We effectively took away maps, but we buffed March considerably. We didn't delete maps outright, and didn't increase the cooldowns without compensation.
There's only one quest that requires you to go to Hoarhallow which contributes to a map, so I don't think that supports your argument very well. You're saying creeps are so driven to earn maps that newbies (without maps, mind you) are picking up 'Ive Got a Theory' at TR and then slow-walking all the way to Hoarhallow to collect sacks of food, then hoofing it back to TR to work towards TR maps? The other TR quests can largely be completed in the Coldfells area, and the other Hoarhallow quests which actually require you to go there (collecting sacks of food & killing the mayor) are Dar-Gazag quests which don't contribute towards map deeds. If players have been doing these quests, it's not because they helped earn maps.

Sorry, I thought and must be mistaken, that killing the mayor in hoarhollow contributed to maps to lugz. Yes, greenies are picking up the "I've got a theory" quest at tr and "hoofing" it to hoarhollow to pick up food sacks and "hoofing" it back because they don't have maps. They are also picking up troll stone for those tr quests and wood they need for lumber camp. I only know of 3 stone troll locations off the top of my head that are located in the coldfells. Again, it's been a while since I've had to gather troll stone. Most of the time when groups get together to do quests, they aren't mapping, they are running a circuit "hoofing" it all the way. I'm not trying to be argumentative but the creeps that I regularly group with, and I'm rank 15 mind you, are "hoofing" it from one quest objective to the next and that is because they are working either on ranking up veteran creep classes or working on maps for new creep classes. I'm "hoofing" it across the map, following greenies, because I know freeps are hunting them in quest areas away from map ins. I'm not saying I'm not using maps, just that when creeps are in trouble in hoarhollow, its easier for me to get there to 'save' them if I can map gta rather than trying to "hoof" it from grams hoping the action is still there before mapping back to grothum to hunt the freeps doing quests there or waiting for creeps. I suppose this is your way of saying I need to change my game play strategy.

You will have to excuse me if I don't see the compensation here. I as a defiler player, can't dismount freeps from their horses since I have no ranged interrupt, nor can I catch them since mount speed is higher than march. I get knocked out of march the instant I am in combat whereas this is not the case for freep mounts. My maps are however on a 1-hour cooldown so I can no longer map ahead of freeps to catch them, or I have to hope that a warg or ba has an open map to catch them. I'm basically watching freeps just ride off into the sunset, avoiding death and pvp all together. This happens constantly.

[DickDastardly]

We effectively took away maps, but we buffed March considerably. We didn't delete maps outright, and didn't increase the cooldowns without compensation.


There's only one quest that requires you to go to Hoarhallow which contributes to a map, so I don't think that supports your argument very well. You're saying creeps are so driven to earn maps that newbies (without maps, mind you) are picking up 'Ive Got a Theory' at TR and then slow-walking all the way to Hoarhallow to collect sacks of food, then hoofing it back to TR to work towards TR maps? The other TR quests can largely be completed in the Coldfells area, and the other Hoarhallow quests which actually require you to go there (collecting sacks of food & killing the mayor) are Dar-Gazag quests which don't contribute towards map deeds. If players have been doing these quests, it's not because they helped earn maps.

You even say above that 'veteran players still do these quests.' If veteran players (who already have all their maps) are completing the quests, their reasons for doing so are unrelated to earning maps. They are still perfectly capable of doing these quests, and their incentives for doing so are unchanged.


These are entirely unrelated. The reasons new creeps are not competitive have very little to do with whether they have maps, and much more to do with their stats, skills, and experience. While we can't help the latter, the September update added several skills to r0 creeps and lowered costs substantially for skills earned going from r0 to r5. Blessings, similarly, significantly increase the overall stat value a creep will have before they've earned all their passives and traits. Low-ranked creeps are substantially better-equipped nowadays than they were 6 months ago, and that has nothing to do with maps.

please stop using words such as "significantly" and "Substantially" when you refer to the so called stat buffs you have so kindly given to creeps .

[Elaelin]

Food for thought SSG: I just tested the new fast walk skill the creeps have been given. There is no way I can bring myself to call it running. Fast walk is probably a generous description.

4 minutes and 13 seconds to walk from Grams to Isendeep Mine. (Even the cave claws turning your way knock you out of the fast walk). I did not see a single freep or stop to do any quest related pickups during the entire walk. I was killed in Isendeep Mine and had to retreat. I did not feel like spending 4 minutes and 13 seconds to walk back again. Not worth it. I hope the freeps enjoyed their one chance to kill a rank 1 reaver.

4 minutes and 32 seconds to walk from Grams to TR. No freeps in sight and no stopping to do anything quest related. Rather dull and boring.

One death to get me to the Lugz rez to save me the walk to DG. No freeps anywhere on that fast walk route either. (Using death and the rez circle is a good way to move a bit more quickly across the map now.
It was just like porting to crude Lugz. No cool down either. Just run into something big.)

After all of that fast walking I was tired and logged. I did not bother to do the same experiment freep side because it would have been less since the horse would have been able to outrun things that cause you to be in combat. Not worth the time it takes to move around and do quests anymore. Very not fun. My first time back in the Moors after a few months and probably my last time back in the Moors.

The timeframes for creeps to move around the map is no fun.

Call me odd or whatever but all of this would have made a whole lot more sense it you actually had a fix in place before you decided to break creeps ability to move about in the Moors. Maybe this should have been tested and feedback requested in a beta? Was there an exploit that needed to be immediately addressed? What changed that 15 year old travel skills had to be stopped immediately with nothing in place to compensate for the change? Now I am curious what is the time table to fix the broken travel time for creeps? Is it on the schedule for anytime soon or is it just another thing you will get to someday?

[Pusher]

We effectively took away maps, but we buffed March considerably. We didn't delete maps outright, and didn't increase the cooldowns without compensation.

Thanks for the replies.

I'll admit that as a Warleader, I forgot March was even a skill. But is the new iteration of the WL group run buff Mobilize supposed to be in addition to March? Because currently, it replaces March as your current run buff, going from +155% to +20%, essentially making it useless. With how it's setup now, Mobilize should be an in-combat skill, giving you an extra +20% run buff for 10 seconds in-combat at the bare minimum.

But as a Warleader, I'm used to my skills being rendered useless, so I won't be surprised if Mobilize is RIP.

[Areyekuwe]

We're still working on some other plans to incentivize travelling to different corners of the map, but daily quests and their rewards still exist. The quest>map incentive is already basically moot for any reasonably veteran player (for many creeps, it's been moot for more than 14 years) and most new players don't have the resources to hold their own in PvP while questing to earn maps, so in that sense the quest>map incentive mostly promoted greenie creeps wandering around where they could be easily killed.

Yes these quests and these maps and greeny creeps wanting and doing.

You are breaking quests and quest rewards that do make many people go to these places, greeny or not.

Also no loot in the raid is not helping.

This all started with accidental deletion of the Report to map to grams. Are you guys holding grudges? This is just really strange sounding logic above.

Making a small group of 4 to 6 greeny creeps and flipping a keep is very, very exiting thing to do, same thing as going to hunt some dragons and all. Commendation bonuses from completion of the keep's quests also help a lot. -This is a long established system of progression that no one really complained about. In fact a very essential system for up to about rank 6. There is actually no reason to replace it with missions. No reason to create reason to start working on replacement or any some such.

[Areyekuwe]

Please have maps.

Please have them on a reasonable CD.

If you would like to reduce number of maps, fine. If you would like to move mapin spot, fine. But you should know that you have just yet again managed to "hit the spot". This is a very unpopular change. That no one really asked for.

[TearMaker]

Our goal is to push creep movement capability (outside of class mechanics and in particular outside of combat) closer to freep movement. We're not done adjusting March. It is currently broken by aggro, yes, but also works in water and can be applied while moving. We're still working out some of those kinks, and the closer we get March to working with the same limitations as freep mounts, the closer their movement bonuses can safely become.



This might have been true once upon a time, but back then creeps didn't have March! and movement across the map was slower in general. Maps often serve to make much of the zone 'dead' space that is simply skipped over. The cooldowns were so short that a creep group could map across the zone from grams to TR, capture the keep, and map back to grams in only a few minutes, and then immediately do it again somewhere else. That doesn't allow for any reasonable opposition group to even try to contest the capture. It also promoted play like logging in and immediately mapping to GTR to join the GV/TR shuffle, without ever crossing open spaces. If that's the case, why even play in a zone with Arador's End, Plains, Hoarhollow, etc. By pushing March closer to freep mounts, both sides should have roughly equivalent movement capability, because at this point in the game, there isn't a strong reason why one side should have significantly improved movement relative to the other.


Orion and I have been making a lot of changes in the Ettenmoors lately. Some will have greater benefit for creeps, others for freeps. Some will benefit new players more, others veteran players. It's a complicated zone, with lots of different players in it, but we're committed to making changes that benefit the overall health of PvP, because we all want to see the Ettenmoors full of players.

I'm sorry but this is precisely why Pvmp is always going to be BAD. The history of this game It has always either been ignored for years or you get enforced developers thinking they can re-invent the wheel, when getting back to basics is what is needed.

Everything you say about creep maps is wrong and borne from a narrow field of view and trying to fix something that isn't broken. Parts of the map are under utilized because there is little there to encourage any but the odd quester or to take a keep. We asked for years upon years for you to make taking a keep adjacent to running a raid level with decent boss at the end. But do you do this? No, you reduce the NPCs and beef up the few that are left. And to make it SEEM like you have succeeded in this endeavour, you remove one of the few sacrament items that a Creep has had since day one - their maps. Hell, the freeps are inundated with mods for their characters but you choose to desecrate the little we have.

Take back your run speed boosts, we never needed them nor did we ask for them. We want our maps back and so does any Freep that isn't trolling. Freeps benefit just as much from Creep maps as Creeps do. (also, remember that most creeps have never been averse to freeps having maps as long as the mounts are banned)

All you are doing is creating a space for campers and if that is your goal then - well done [slow clap]

[UselessSmurf]

This is partly a chicken/egg problem. With maps, why would freeps go to those locations? Creeps are likely to skip across the zone with maps, so freeps are more likely to camp map-in spots. With freeps moving directly to map-in spots, creeps are even less likely to waste time looking anywhere other than map-in spots for freeps.
Without maps, creeps are more likely to be moving across in-between spaces, the same way freeps have to cross open spaces. TR and Lugz rez locations still create a backstop of sorts, so you don't have to run all the way from grams when you die in a fight (assuming your side is pushing across the map) but the landscape between engagements and rez circles will not be always-skippable space. The faster March ability also means that physically running from a rez circle back to a fight is much faster than at any time in the past.



We're still working on some other plans to incentivize travelling to different corners of the map, but daily quests and their rewards still exist. The quest>map incentive is already basically moot for any reasonably veteran player (for many creeps, it's been moot for more than 14 years) and most new players don't have the resources to hold their own in PvP while questing to earn maps, so in that sense the quest>map incentive mostly promoted greenie creeps wandering around where they could be easily killed.



I agree. That's a class/skill balance problem, not a map problem. That's why we're continuing to work on improving creep skills, traits, and combat competency relative to freeps.

^ You are suddenly worried about Greenie Creeps being killed when questing? When Hunters were nuking brand new creeps coming out of Grams on day one of F2P with their absurd 50m range lol. That is such a backhanded comment.
I don't think you care about Freeps nuking Greenies, its just a talking point to justify your removal of maps.

[Elaelin]

^ You are suddenly worried about Greenie Creeps being killed when questing? When Hunters were nuking brand new creeps coming out of Grams on day one of F2P with their absurd 50m range lol. That is such a backhanded comment.
I don't think you care about Freeps nuking Greenies, its just a talking point to justify your removal of maps.

LOL, in my 10ish minutes of walking around the Moors on a rank 1 yesterday (testing the new improved system for lowbies) I was killed once at the entrance to the Isen Mine by someone ranged that I never even saw because they were too far away and using that range extender. A much improved experience lol. Walk around for a long time. Get killed by someone at range. Walk a bit more and log. I am just happy I never spent LotRO points to buy maps for the little one. I guess I just don't appreciate true fun or understand why walking around for 10 minutes to die is good for me. Maybe the logic is that because I cannot port back I will rethink the wisdom of spending 4 plus minutes to walk back and die again? Maybe I should thank SSG for implementing a change which significantly slows down my ability to return to a fight after a death? Afterall, they saved me from being foolish and repeating my original mistake of leaving Grams.

A note to SSG: In all fairness, range extender traceries for freeps really need to be disabled in the Moors. It gives the freeps a very unfair advantage over creeps.

[Phiolin]

I agree. That's a class/skill balance problem, not a map problem. That's why we're continuing to work on improving creep skills, traits, and combat competency relative to freeps.

That´s perfecty understable and I encourage you both to keep up the nice work.

Just take in mind thay while you are working to balance creeps and freeps, you are always forgetting that the first balance rule in game you did there in 2007 ( yes, that time when old team manager took decisions to launch the game), and was to add more morale to creeps, because freeps were always more powerfull in all techinque areas.

Right now, with the actual situation in game, with laggy servers wich completly destroy the experience even in pve, creeps have a big advantage in long fights, ( they have also way less lag than freeps), but you are improving all their skills, traits and combat competency, balancing with the freeps, and not balancing the morale pool at all, ( not in line either with the heals on defiler wich is absurdly most OP heal in whole game, remember that on long laggy fights, hots heals from creepside, have a BIG ADVANTAGE).

Take as example the Reaver. Not entering on discussion If is too OP or not. I´m completly sure you were very aware of Champion class being mega OP, ( sprint 45 secs, with 10 secs cd beetwen) UBA dps, heals, stuns, fast skills, morale, almost ( If not equal) to the lvl 65/75 Champion ( wich was Captain América class NGL xd)), and Reaver had have to be equaled, or close atleast. We all understand that fact.

But what you have done to the Reaver it would be very precise ( again, not gonna discuss this.. I have my own oppinon, but I am talking only about morale pool in this post), If wasn´t because he has still the same morale as before ( close 3M morale pool with the option to have full mitigations, etc) and now can spamm bleeds wich can´t be removed on time for any class. Still heal itself way more than any non-healing class in game, now can stun added to the slow, and disarm, so, basicly, another "captain america" class, but on creep, and with the same morale pool.

This is only an example.

If you really want to be "continuing to work on improving creep skills, traits, and combat competency relative to freeps", do it properly and thinking on all consecuences.

Why can creeps have +155% inside keeps, and freeps can´t use the horse inside keep?
Why they don´t use induction for "march" as freeps do on their horses? Should I keep ON?

Every touching you do in thigs game, affects to other side. It is imposible to balance the game after 15 years, we all know this fact. Only I ask you is to think WELL what you do before than do it.

Keep on the nice work again!.

[OnnMacMahal]

I'll admit that as a Warleader, I forgot March was even a skill. But is the new iteration of the WL group run buff Mobilize supposed to be in addition to March? Because currently, it replaces March as your current run buff, going from +155% to +20%, essentially making it useless. With how it's setup now, Mobilize should be an in-combat skill, giving you an extra +20% run buff for 10 seconds in-combat at the bare minimum.

March is now essentially a creepside mount. It's available to all creep classes, and while it's not quite equal to a mount in speed and function, but it's getting close.

Mobilise is unfortunately a bit buggy at the moment, but this has already been fixed, and the fix will be live soon. It should be a run-speed buff for your group which works in or out of combat, but provides no benefit to creeps who are 'Marching' as the March skill sets your movement speed, preventing it from being affected by other modifiers.

[Elaelin]

March is now essentially a creepside mount. It's available to all creep classes, and while it's not quite equal to a mount in speed and function, but it's getting close.

Mobilise is unfortunately a bit buggy at the moment, but this has already been fixed, and the fix will be live soon. It should be a run-speed buff for your group which works in or out of combat, but provides no benefit to creeps who are 'Marching' as the March skill sets your movement speed, preventing it from being affected by other modifiers.

I used a stop watch and tested the creepside mount yesterday. It is not much faster than walking. Pretty much if anything looks at you it is back to slow walk speed. If you take the time to fast walk around everything that causes you to drop march it is the equivalent to a slow walk because you spend all your time avoiding things. This does not help newbies to the Moors.

The creep mount is not exactly close. The minute a freep hits a creep no more fast walk speed. A freep on a mount can continue riding away if a creep is nearby.

I highly recommend you try walking the map and avoiding things that cause you to drop the march speed. Also, there were no freeps lining the roads waiting to start fights.

I guess another idea would be to remove all wildlife in the Moors or make it all yellow so there is nothing that will agro when a creep walks by. The freeps were in the same old spots waiting to stealth kill and hide. Nothing much changed other than I realized taking over 4 minutes to walk back and die again was not worth the effort.

[OnnMacMahal]

LOL, in my 10ish minutes of walking around the Moors on a rank 1 yesterday (testing the new improved system for lowbies) I was killed once at the entrance to the Isen Mine by someone ranged that I never even saw because they were too far away and using that range extender. A much improved experience lol. Walk around for a long time. Get killed by someone at range. Walk a bit more and log. I am just happy I never spent LotRO points to buy maps for the little one. I guess I just don't appreciate true fun or understand why walking around for 10 minutes to die is good for me. Maybe the logic is that because I cannot port back I will rethink the wisdom of spending 4 plus minutes to walk back and die again? Maybe I should thank SSG for implementing a change which significantly slows down my ability to return to a fight after a death? Afterall, they saved me from being foolish and repeating my original mistake of leaving Grams.

A note to SSG: In all fairness, range extender traceries for freeps really need to be disabled in the Moors. It gives the freeps a very unfair advantage over creeps.

What class were you playing? What blessing were you using? What rank was your hunter?

While it's always sad to get killed like that, I agree with you that I think the bigger problem in that scenario is with range extension and the relative strength of the freep who attacked you. In this instance, even if you had an easy map back to the Isendeep Mine where you died, you would've likely still been killed by that player a second time without much chance. Or maybe you would've called it out in OOC, in which case any number of creeps could've mapped in just as easily, steamrolling that freep without you getting any credit. That would just be a bad experience for both you and the freep. We'd more focused on raising the combat effectiveness floor, while doing what we can to make it harder for overwhelming numbers to easily win any engagement.

By its very nature as an asymmetrical sandbox, the Ettenmoors will never have 'perfect balance' but we are working to close the biggest gaps between classes, ranks, and opposing sides as much as possible.

[OnnMacMahal]

I used a stop watch and tested the creepside mount yesterday. It is not much faster than walking.

It's 55% faster, so it's definitely not nothing. 'Normal' freep mounts are 62-68% speed, and they've never had maps to jump around the zone.

I highly recommend you try walking the map and avoiding things that cause you to drop the march speed.

I regularly play on creepside (more than on freepside by a wide margin for most of my time since 07). Moving around aggressive mobs is annoying at times (leaving TR rez surrounded by Coldfells bears especially) but it's far from impossible. Most of the in-between parts of the map are either devoid of mobs, full of creep-friendly mobs, or full of neutral mobs which don't attack you immediately.


Regardless, the next iteration of March we've got pending will be even closer to freep mounts:
+65% Movement speed
March must be initiated out of combat, but will not be cancelled by entering combat
Damage taken will eventually break March, and interrupts will break it immediately (this is how freep mounts work)
Swimming will break March
Keeps & caves which prevent mounts will prevent March

[Elaelin]

What class were you playing? What blessing were you using? What rank was your hunter?

While it's always sad to get killed like that, I agree with you that I think the bigger problem in that scenario is with range extension and the relative strength of the freep who attacked you. In this instance, even if you had an easy map back to the Isendeep Mine where you died, you would've likely still been killed by that player a second time without much chance. Or maybe you would've called it out in OOC, in which case any number of creeps could've mapped in just as easily, steamrolling that freep without you getting any credit. That would just be a bad experience for both you and the freep. We'd more focused on raising the combat effectiveness floor, while doing what we can to make it harder for overwhelming numbers to easily win any engagement.

By its very nature as an asymmetrical sandbox, the Ettenmoors will never have 'perfect balance' but we are working to close the biggest gaps between classes, ranks, and opposing sides as much as possible.

I used a rank 1 reaver to test as a newbie. I was not a hunter. It was a hunter that killed me.

Yes, I would have probably died had I ported back but having the ability to port back would have given me the opportunity to fight a freep. I can't learn or grow as a creep if SSG thinks I should stay safe at Grams. This all defeats the purpose of the Moors. The only way I can learn to play any creep effectively is to get into fights. The best way to get into fights is to find freeps and keep trying until I get better. I cannot get better when I cannot move around the map. Most newbies to the Moors either get maps from the store or get the tokens to buy maps from people that have a lifetime supply of the barter items. Newbies obtaining maps has rarely been an issue.

I agree there never will be perfect balance. I am one that strongly believes you need three factions to keep any semblance of balance in a PVP area. It works in other games because if one group ends up with a little too much power there are two other sides that can take them down a notch. LotRO is too old for that type of change.

The whole issue here is removing the maps before you have a replacement plan in place. The maps keep things active in the Moors. I suspect that was a bored hunter there yesterday. Waiting around to kill a rank 1 reaver who decided walking back was going to take too long. Freeps want to fight too and they need a steady diet of creeps to do it. No maps means a whole lot less movement and activity.

The range extenders are just evil. A while back when I was still playing in the Moors on a regular basis we had the joyful experience of standing in the rez circle and getting hit by hunters. The hunters had better range than the one shot guards. Creeps also need extended range as do the one shot NPCs.

You really need to try walking from place to place in the Moors. Use a stopwatch and you will get to experience the reality of this change.

[OnnMacMahal]

You really need to try walking from place to place in the Moors. Use a stopwatch and you will get to experience the reality of this change.

I've almost exclusively been playing on creepside for the past few months, on my veteran characters and even on new creep alts with no maps. Moving from grams to the center of the map is a lot faster now than it was 6 months ago. It's slower than relying entirely on Good maps with 5m cooldowns, but it's not far off the movement times freeps have worked with since the game launched. How do you think that solo hunter got all the way to Isendeep mine?

[J-Moneyforever]

We effectively took away maps, but we buffed March considerably. We didn't delete maps outright, and didn't increase the cooldowns without compensation.


There's only one quest that requires you to go to Hoarhallow which contributes to a map, so I don't think that supports your argument very well. You're saying creeps are so driven to earn maps that newbies (without maps, mind you) are picking up 'Ive Got a Theory' at TR and then slow-walking all the way to Hoarhallow to collect sacks of food, then hoofing it back to TR to work towards TR maps? The other TR quests can largely be completed in the Coldfells area, and the other Hoarhallow quests which actually require you to go there (collecting sacks of food & killing the mayor) are Dar-Gazag quests which don't contribute towards map deeds. If players have been doing these quests, it's not because they helped earn maps.

You even say above that 'veteran players still do these quests.' If veteran players (who already have all their maps) are completing the quests, their reasons for doing so are unrelated to earning maps. They are still perfectly capable of doing these quests, and their incentives for doing so are unchanged.


These are entirely unrelated. The reasons new creeps are not competitive have very little to do with whether they have maps, and much more to do with their stats, skills, and experience. While we can't help the latter, the September update added several skills to r0 creeps and lowered costs substantially for skills earned going from r0 to r5. Blessings, similarly, significantly increase the overall stat value a creep will have before they've earned all their passives and traits. Low-ranked creeps are substantially better-equipped nowadays than they were 6 months ago, and that has nothing to do with maps.

Overall I am pro these changes because contrary to what all the zergers would have you believe it absolutely does promote roaming fights in a way that's noticeable. That said creeps march being broken on combat and being slower than horses is not good. I would like to roam and fight on reaver but a freep can generally just ride away on their horse if they move properly and wish to avoid the fight.
Also unless quests have changed (entirely possible since I haven't done map quests in 5+ years) there are actually TWO HH quests that you turn in at DG that contribute toward the Lugz map. Not sure if intentional or not but it definitely used to be the case.
EDIT: I see you responded while I was typing this response. Your proposed march changes would entirely solve the issues I have with it so ignore that part of my post.

[Elaelin]

I've almost exclusively been playing on creepside for the past few months, on my veteran characters and even on new creep alts with no maps. Moving from grams to the center of the map is a lot faster now than it was 6 months ago. It's slower than relying entirely on Good maps with 5m cooldowns, but it's not far off the movement times freeps have worked with since the game launched. How do you think that solo hunter got all the way to Isendeep mine?

I would have no issues with both sides having maps. When freeps or creeps have to travel slow mode between locations that takes away from actual PVP. My test from yesterday. I spent over 9 minutes wandering around looking for freeps. There may have been more freeps out there but I didn't walk in the correct spots to find them. The actual PVP experience was less than 10 seconds. Fast or slow mode that is a lot of walking for a bit of PVP. The maps enable creeps to get to places more quickly which in the end increases actual PVP vs. wandering looking for a PVP opportunity.

Adding maps for freeps and removing horses would probably be a better overall solution to whatever problem has caused the need for this change. The Moors on the smaller servers do not have the populations needed to find free roaming PVP opportunities. There have been many good suggestions here which would keep maps in a balanced manner.

Think about Osgiliath. That area never took off and became a favored PVP spot. It was too big and getting around there was a chore. People did not enjoy it. The Moors map is big. Getting around the map is now a chore for both sides just like Osgiliath was. I think improving movement for freeps would have been a better solution than restricting movement of creeps. Would everyone be happy? Probably not. Would it have been received better? Maybe? Removing creep maps has not caused anyone that I know to say "Great idea. We have needed that change for years."

Catch here is if you completely change a class and I don't like the change I can play some other class and move on. There are choices in the PVE world. Changing the way the Moors function and people move around does not leave us with the option to play a different class. Some things have been around and a staple to the game for so long that they should be set in stone. Adding to the in game experience rather than removing long term staples of the game could win people over to your point of view. Changes can be made but they don't all require SSG to bring in the bulldozers and level areas. WoW tried that years ago. And I strongly believe changes like this should have been tested on BR and stayed there until the balance was achieved. There was no possible reason to rush it out without any testing and balancing.

Sometimes a softer touch would be a better approach to get buy in rather than the my way or the highway method of change. You are trying to convince people who have been playing this game for years that they need to completely rethink how to play the game they have been happy playing for years. Tweak and improvements are always needed and welcome. Completely changing things that were not broken while they might be fun and they might be an improvement, they will be a hard sell most times and alienate more people than necessary.