Official Discussion: Helm's Deep NDA Drop.

[Varel]

What was the rationale for the two point penalty in the off spec trees? You're already dumping points elsewhere. No skill tree based mmo I've played (WoW, Rift, SWTOR) does this. Spec too deep in one tree, the best stuff in other trees are already off limits to you so why the need for this increased penalty? It's already baked in.

Also, with regards to BB...I watched the video released a couple days ago, and it really didn't seem all that compelling. If you guys had to estimate, how much of the expansion content is BB? 30%? 40%? Is there still going to be mounted combat?

regarding the skill trees, it is because passive traits are gated to your depth in a skill tree. The intent of the trees as pointed out in the stuff Turbine put out was "hard choices". They want you go choose. Remember, you can switch trait lines out anytime if you are out of combat. However in combat you will find your generalist builds harder to do or even impossible.

what is going to be interesting is the creative "builds" folks come up with. You can get to the capstone of your tree with a fair amount of points still available at 85. Add 10 more levels (or over the course of another year or two - more levels) and you can add more. But it is a big change. My main is a cappy, definitely an adjustment. New challenges, new things. It really grew on me some. If that helps.

Regarding size of BB. I don't know how to answer that. The landscape is large and there is a lot of quests. BB are certainly a major part of the expansion. I found them only mildly interesting solo. However when I did them with some kinmates, I actually had a good time. But it is very different sort of gameplay.

All my opinions fwiw

[Palentian]

I can't help but notice that the few posters who give these changes favorable reviews keep using the word "distinctive." I don't think a lot of people are going to enjoy being forced into one of three "distinctive" cookie-cutter builds with very limited opportunities to invest in skills outside of their main trait tree.

Not true. You are welcome to put points in out of spec slots! I did and found that it actually works better for some classes than others. My hunter, for example, blew when i tried to do much than a little out of spec. My RK, however, did rather well dipping into all three lines. (Depends a lot on which line you spec in, of course.) In either case, you will sacrifice some effectiveness in your specialty in exchange. Play around and see what likes you.

[Rapunzel666]

the trouble with three branches and crosstraiting heavily punished, it all boils down to more or less only three valid options, all other combinations a severe compromise, resulting in a character not good at anything. there is nothing like the former flexibility in building your char left..
Trait trees should be rewarding / punishing skills, but still allowing to use everything you have available (of course a certain clean-up is called for, no matter which ways trees are implemented), not gating skills (except the former legendary cap stones).
Being stuck to one line, and not being able to switch stances temporarily, group content certainly will lose its appeal (guard dead? bad luck, no champ there to switch to glory to pick up the aggro for a few secs). oh wait, there is no group content, just some ugly looking something called big battles. Sorry, the video i was seeing looked nothing like something epic.. npc's standing around stiff like extras not knowing what to do..

I will spend the time til a few patches have been implemented with leveling my alts, and enjoying the quests in the areas I enjoyed so much when starting with my first character. With still 6 classes only in the 30s, I probably can continue til the next expansion arrives with yet another game mechanic bloating character development, leaving other stuff unfinished or moved to the store (legendary revamp, I look at you, with tier 7+ relics reappearing).

Well, I sound too much like a grumpy old man..
I hope this will turn out for the better, my pessimism mitigated by patches and simply 'getting used to it', my love for tolkien cushioning the fall.
Perhaps a housing update, perhaps with southfarthing in its bag, will win my love again :-)

To all of you excited for Helm's Deep: I wish you joy playing, don't let us naysayers spoil the fun for you.. !

[Zetsubousensei]

I didn't manage to notice any mention of certain particularities of the Big Battles so here we go (apologies if I'm repeating another post).

There is no tanking in big battles. The mobs that attack pick a specific target for themselves when they assault, and you are not on the list of choices. It is either a rohirrim soldier, an obstacle (if the mob is a sapper type) or a commander (if the attacker is itself a commander). Aggro does not switch this target. Only if the list of primary objects is exhausted - that is, all the defenders at that defense zone have been killed - will they start targeting you. And since you are the only target left, and there's more mobs pouring in all the time, you will be overwhelmed very quickly. (The point being, you must keep the defenders alive.)

There is no CC either in big battles. Think of it as every single mob from trash upwards having a permanent CC immunity buff. The only things that slow them down are defensive works and Engineer traps.

DPS on the other hand is just as effective as ever, and in fact very desirable in certain situations in certain BBs as defenders will be extremly hard pressed to survive the enemy waves. For example, if in Helm's Dike you get the secondary quest to defend Helm Hammerhand's statue, certain types of mobs will start spawning (orc vandals, troll brutes and so on) whose primary target (see tanking above) is not the defensive line but rather the statue. This will cause them run straight through the line and go for the statue, which will pull rohirrim targeting them into a wild chase. This leaves less defenders to the line (sometimes just the commander, who never moves) against a static number of attackers, which means they get ganged on and die fast.

If you don't want merit loss for lots of rohirrim dying in the line of duty, you are going to need strong dps or healing. Period.

The Battles are still in balancing flux so things may chance between current beta (beta #5) and release, but: in wall defense instances (Deeping Wall and Hornburg) the best strategy still remains to ignore enemies and concentrate on cutting their grappling hooks and felling their ladders. This guarantees that instead of rohirrim defenders getting ganged on, it is the attackers that are at material disadvantage and die off quickly. Strategic healing by commanders or a healer ensures not a single defender dies. Of course you need to deal with enemy catapults with your own; they hurt so much that ignoring them is pretty much a guaranteed loss.

The prohibition on switching specs in combat has already been mentioned, so no more of that. I don't think equipment switch restrictions in combat got mentioned yet, but I'm actually not completely in clear about its current state so others should explain. Last I heard was, weapons could be switched in combat but nothing else. (Hearsay, did not test.)

[Thorgrum]

the trouble with three branches and crosstraiting heavily punished, it all boils down to more or less only three valid options, all other combinations a severe compromise, resulting in a character not good at anything. there is nothing like the former flexibility in building your char left..
Trait trees should be rewarding / punishing skills, but still allowing to use everything you have available (of course a certain clean-up is called for, no matter which ways trees are implemented), not gating skills (except the former legendary cap stones).
Being stuck to one line, and not being able to switch stances temporarily, group content certainly will lose its appeal (guard dead? bad luck, no champ there to switch to glory to pick up the aggro for a few secs). oh wait, there is no group content, just some ugly looking something called big battles. Sorry, the video i was seeing looked nothing like something epic.. npc's standing around stiff like extras not knowing what to do..

I will spend the time til a few patches have been implemented with leveling my alts, and enjoying the quests in the areas I enjoyed so much when starting with my first character. With still 6 classes only in the 30s, I probably can continue til the next expansion arrives with yet another game mechanic bloating character development, leaving other stuff unfinished or moved to the store (legendary revamp, I look at you, with tier 7+ relics reappearing).

Well, I sound too much like a grumpy old man..
I hope this will turn out for the better, my pessimism mitigated by patches and simply 'getting used to it', my love for tolkien cushioning the fall.
Perhaps a housing update, perhaps with southfarthing in its bag, will win my love again :-)

To all of you excited for Helm's Deep: I wish you joy playing, don't let us naysayers spoil the fun for you.. !

You opened brilliantly. There is only one MMO that allows you to be in middle earth, this is it. I don't trust turbine or their dev's, history (recent as well, hows that free epic line eh?) bares that out. I accept the rational for the revamp however turbine has a tendacy to go to extreme's (see mini's and wardens) and in the end the players simply have to adjust. Ive read a few of the class write ups, I share the view you expressed on your first sentence. Its a loss for the player base not a gain, however I do understand why its necessary for them and their mouth pieces to convey the class revamps as something unique and spectacular. On the contrary, it reads like the classes have been dumbed down considerably. Perhaps that's what they have to do to attract new players, I don't know. I do know this will be a mixed bag, some will love it, some will hate it, and some like me will wax and wein in and out of apathy. Good luck turbine

[Andthelion]

To all of you excited for Helm's Deep: I wish you joy playing, don't let us naysayers spoil the fun for you.. !

Yeah actually , I would like to second that.

I have said a lot of negative things and well, that's because I find the Big Battles and class changes very negative and I wont apologize for that either.

That said don't take my word for anything, all I have expressed are my opinions and I strongly encourage all of you to try the battles and class changes out before making any decisions.

If you are excited for HD release, remain so, the landscape and quests are, as always incredible, and who knows once you try the big battles and class changes you may feel different than I do, I truly hope that will be the case.

[Zetsubousensei]

(see mini's and wardens)

If the original warden changes had gone through until this stage (NDA drop) we would be seeing the Warden subforum exploding and going into nuclear meltdown right about now. The original plan was simply stunning.

[Mournsigh]

Loving the minstrel QQ....It seems to me that the PvmP portion of the game may well mean Creeps spending considerable time ensuring ALL classes in the battle don't get out of combat in order to switch trees...instead of currently trying to ensure Minstrels and Captains don't....oh wait....such is the current chronic lag in the Ettenmoors atm, one need only wait for the a short while for the server to decide it's lost contact with you, dropping you out of combat frequently . Lately I could eat/map in the midst of battle if I chose to. Not to mention hunters using the opportunity to DF...I guess we can look forward to multiple freep tree-swapping at will. Granted, it might of course be a complete non-problem (except for the obvious rk/minstrel threat of dps--->heals), as some trees for some classes will not necessarily enhance PvmP but the point is, if Turbine is going to be so vocally opposed to in-combat tree swapping, as it has been, they will for sure be letting it in the back door via current poor server performance. Perhaps they have in mind to unilaterally disable ANY tree swapping in the Moors outside of GV, after all this would currently be the only way to prevent it happening. Really.On a broader note, I am very pleased with what I have seen, from a PvE point of view. Anything ,and I mean anything, is better than all classes being overly multi-able, at all times. To me, classes couldn't be more dumbed down than they currently are on live, being a Master of all Trades doesn't appeal to me. The trees bestow versatility - at a cost - not take it away. Specialism is a good thing. The game had absolutely no choice but to make a significant thinning-out change to all classes, I only hope that they administer that change severely enough upon release and near-future updates. The worst thing, in my opinion, would be Turbine succumbing to all the moaning about how ''underpowered'' a class might be on the baseline of any given tree. It's early days folks, there's potential for some really nifty developments after this initial redirection, watch and wait to see what Turbine has in mind once this change has been in place for some time, and where class specialisms will head in the more distant future with the introduction of more new skills in future level caps. Personally, I'd have preferred Turbine to go the whole hog and make each player choose it's specialism and be forced to stick with it with no on the fly tree switching at all. You wanna play an Ancient Master instead of the MoNF you currently are? Then make one

Looking forward to seeing what Champions decide to trait in the Moors.....yum yum.

PS: TURBINE! Whilst you're at it, pls MAKE PVE MOBS MUCH MUCH MORE DIFFICULT TO KILL....players should not coast through this game as if the enemy were made of olive oil spread.

[Bhoris_they_spider]

If any raiding kins or alliance are wondering what the only new L95 12-man is like then just imagine a more tedious version of smaug T2 CM with a lot of pre-grinding in order to level yourself up prior to being able to complete it.

Welcome to HD end-game... Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse than the Erebor cluster!

[chrohandhaivey]

Tester for the whole of beta going back many, many months now... I'll preempt this by stating that it is wholly my opinion based upon having played LotRO since SoA launch and being an experienced beta tester for this and many other games.

- The landscape is fantastic and the story arcs I feel are very strong. These have really always been LotRO's strong suits and this xpack will be no exception. I am very pleased with the leveling experience in HD.

- End-game content I feel I am going to be bored with faster than a typical raid cluster. I am not among the many people screaming about how awful the big battles are. I actually think they are innovative and engaging. However, I also feel the novelty of them will wear off. In addition, I'm hugely disappointed that they didn't make these encounters all scale to any group size. They lost out on a huge opportunity to really stake a flag on the "any group size for instanced content" market, because that's what many players (in general in the gaming community) have desired for a while. The freedom to do any of the HD battles in a group of 4 players, for instance, would've been fantastic (this also would've buffered many issues, since a lot of players and kinships end up with ~4-5 players online at a time during slow periods). They had even hinted these battles would go that way, but we're locked into standard group sizes sadly. Huge disappointment there. Even so, I still feel like these will be fairly decent content for the majority of players.

- Class changes are a humongous area of contention. First and foremost, do NOT expect to have a viable hybrid build... all those initial promises about choice and hybridization are not true. They put such a heavy trait point penalty for traiting out of line that hybrid builds aren't truly worthwhile (or truly possible, as many of the key things you'd want from hybridizing are locked behind trait line bonuses and NOT on the trees themselves). Just putting that out there... expect to pick a trait line, put all your eggs into it, and lock into it. (You can switch trees between pulls in an instance, but this isn't hybridization, it's just "retraiting.") I have tested 7 out of 9 classes (I have one of each class on live... I did not test champion or warden). I am NOT one of the people thinking these changes are the end of the world. By and large, the changes are positive for me. The truly frustrating thing is that (as usual) there are "winner and losers" amongst the classes. Hunter and Captain are my top two winners. These classes have had a ton of synergy added and they are very fun experiences. Most of the classes fall in the "slightly positive" category for me... nothing I'd go crazy about and say is amazing, but better than is currently on live. Overall... class changes I think will wind up being positive once people get used to it (YES, it will take an adjustment in your mentality, skill bars, traiting, play style, etc.... expect it to be like picking up a sequel game, there will be some similarities, but there will be many differences from what you're used to having).

The uncontested loser is the minstrel. (Because this is the class I've spent the most testing time on, and this is the class that looks downright atrocious, I'll give you guys the most input here.) This class hit beta in a disaster state. Seriously... one of those little pecking desktop contraptions that you start and then it pecks could've done a better job than where this class started... or perhaps a monkey on crack jumping up and down on the keyboard (and this is me being incredibly nice and tame about it). Sadly, very little with this class has changed since then. Despite nearly unanimous negative feedback, this class has received no design changes from day one onward (just minor tweaks here and there... for perspective, it's like having a dilapidated house with a crumbling foundation that's about to collapse and saying you're going to make sure the portrait above the mantel is securely fastened). Rather than leaving a null stance (in addition to War-Speech and Harmony), the old names that Orion created for the 3 stances have been dug out yet again (Resonance, Dissonance, and Melody), creating the 3rd toggleable stance. Just like when Orion tried to make the changes ages ago the feedback has been overwhelmingly negative. The changes are implemented in an incredibly confusing manner, and even the class dev seems confused by the stance purposes and trait-line-alignment... the stance bonuses and skill alterations are jumbled around and not linked properly with the proper stance. I'm not even going to pretend to try to explain things as they are right now, because it's still awful. To Orion's credit he listened to the negative feedback ages ago and dropped the changes (leaving two toggleable stances and a "null" stance, reverting back to the name War-Speech that we'd always known, as we see it now on live). Unfortunately, no feedback whatsoever has been accepted this time around. In fact, a blatant disregard for feedback on this class has been the hallmark of this beta (it's really sad that with all the positive stuff going on in this xpack and all the many things I've enjoyed, the longest-lasting memory I'll have from my many months of beta will be the "shut up and accept my authority" mentality surrounding this class). One of the previous posters suggested taking a break or playing an alt for a while until after a patch has come out, and I'd honestly (as a primary minstrel) agree. The attitude toward the minstrel right now is "just stick with us because we'll fix issues for the first big 12.1 patch." Pure healing is insanely OP right now... honestly... I've not let anyone die in beta... and I've been so bored by the healing because I have less to do, not being able to buff anymore other than 1 buff at a time, that I've found myself drifting into watching tv as I'm running content. Damage is the same as always really, a little less on the skill rotations because some skills have been moved and locked into other trait lines (for instance, call of the second age, randomly now locked on healing). Yellow line is same as always not the best design and needs many changes in order to truly be viable as a standalone build. The number of problems with skills awkwardly being locked into other lines and you having no ability to reach them, incorrect bonuses or skill alterations, issues with stances, loss of hybridization from live, etc., are truly innumerable (yes, right now, currently, two weeks out). And I don't want to skim over that last one in the list there... there is a definite LOSS of hybridization from what we already have. Currently on live, for instance, I can trait 4B/3Y and with proper setup hold 3 anthems up at a time while healing... mid-fight, uh oh, we need a bit extra dps, I'll turn on War-Speech and go through my skill rotation to aid us until I need to drop for healing... we popped a FM, I'll hit Call to the Fellowship to boost the FM...... I've got the ability to hybridize between healing and group utility, I'm not the most maxed out uber-healer, but I'm good enough while having utility.... With the changes, you won't have enough trait points to truly hybridize in a "4/3" ratio/nature in the two lines. Call to the Fellowship, Call to Greatness, Inspire Fellows, and any other group utility skill is now locked into the yellow tree and most of them are not achievable if you don't select that tree as your base tree (or if you do choose that tree, you lose Rally, TS, etc from your base healing skills that are locked into that line). You won't have any of your damage skills because those are locked into another tree, so mid-fight stance swapping will be pointless... The ability to hold more than 1 buff up at a time is locked into traiting the yellow line. So expect to be able to function strongly in 1 of the roles that we have on live while not being able to do anything worthwhile in the others. Your skill rotations will be greatly lessened, your toolbox will be eliminated, and you'll have a few core skills that you grind to death. It's a very boring setup with exceedingly minimal "synergy" (if you can even call it that). So while other classes are receiving synergy, creativity, and fun, the minstrel is receiving vanilla, simplistic, and boring.

OVERALL: This xpack should be filled with many, many good things. It should be entertaining for a wide variety of players for at least a period of time. The community should expect to have to alter their active play style or mental approach to a class in order to gain the most enjoyment and benefit. Save for the minstrel (which it cannot be possible for them to correct the massive number of problems in time for launch, especially given the multi-month ignoring of feedback before now), this looks to be a solid xpack, though there may be a little roughness with the big battles immediately after launch until they are tweaked and patched (this last statement could change in time for launch if they focus on getting it right, so it's a tentative assessment). Ultimately I'm looking forward to HD, but I'll be playing my hunter and captain from now on as primary characters instead of secondary ones and my minstrel will get shelved.

[Darkheart06]

This is my first time logging in in over a year and I haven't played in even longer.

Hearing that LoTRO was going from traits to skill trees I was horrified. Reading initial reactions in this topic I was disgusted. But then I started reading the actual changes and I they actually look interesting.

My main concern with hearing that some skills will be folded into each other or other traits or removed completely was that gameplay would be dumbed down. Specifically my favorite and main class the Burglar. But reading its skill trees, correct me if I'm wrong, but the only "streamlined" skills were situational ones and that each spec now actually seems to have unique playstyles. My other favorite class was Guardian and the new DPS line looks fantastic as well as the new debuff-tanking thing it has going on.

Granted, I don't play a Minstrel and I'm afraid to see how these traits worked out for Wardens but what I see now is an actual attempt at balance. These changes are going to have a very profound and very interesting effect on PvMP, which is what most of my LoTRO time was.

I will share the opinion that penalizing choices outside of your spec line is terrible and uncalled for. Is the whole point of trees not choice? Did Turbine not say they want us to make hard choices? How exactly can we do that with the current system? It seems like the only choice you can make is what line you want to spec in.

That all being said, I'm still on the fence about returning to LoTRO (a game I have played since launch and have loved in the past). I went from horrified to intrigued by the class changes but many of my old concerns remain. Is focus still placed on solo-content grind? What happened to LoTRO's formerly stellar group content? What is the point in making us specialize now if none of the content requires any specialization? The big battles sound horrible. Is there still terrible lag in Rohan and the Ettenmoors? Are they making any attempt at trying to balance the Moors and addressing concerns players have had with keep and OP mechanics for years? And the biggest complaint: THE GRIND. MY GOD THE GRIND. Grind LIs (please drop this system entirely), grind your horse, grind for random drops, grind to upgrade them. LoTRO is as grindy as the hardcore '90s MMOs. I think even Everquest had less grind.

[Andthelion]

It's early days folks, there's potential for some really nifty developments after this initial redirection, watch and wait to see what Turbine has in mind once this change has been in place for some time, and where class specialisms will head in the more distant future with the introduction of more new skills in future level caps.Looking forward to seeing what Champions decide to trait in the Moors.....yum yum.

If it takes a year or even 2 years and a level cap of 115 before these changes actually start to make sense then that is a massive fail on their part, people want to play their classes NOW, they want to enjoy the game NOW, not struggle through in the hope than in a year or 2 it may get better.

This game has been going for 7 years with this system, to rip it up and gut it with the premise that the new one might be viable this time next year is just utterly ridiculous.

There is too much happening in the gaming world right now for people to stick around and invest their time and money in a game that might work properly sometime in the future, especially when their are other alternatives out there now that are working fine and dont ask their customers to hang around with them while time passes in order for what they implemented to start working properly.

In other words if these trees are not up to standard the day they are released then they should not be released at all.

[Beaniemooch]

Not true. You are welcome to put points in out of spec slots! I did and found that it actually works better for some classes than others. My hunter, for example, blew when i tried to do much than a little out of spec. My RK, however, did rather well dipping into all three lines. (Depends a lot on which line you spec in, of course.) In either case, you will sacrifice some effectiveness in your specialty in exchange. Play around and see what likes you.

I tested the minstrel and so that's where my feedback focuses. This out of spec doesn't work well in my opinion. If you are in the dps/red tree the opening traits in the yellow and blue tree are increased crit healing, Soothing Voice to increase your healing output, Anthem of Composure (which you'll need for power return in red), Anthem cooldown and improved Inspire Fellows. You would have to spend at least an additional 10 points to get to the 2nd tier and nothing there was exciting either. T2 of the yellow tree does have increased tactical mastery, but by then you're hurting for points even if you skip some things in the dps line. Anything outside your main traitline costs 2 points rather than 1.

Rally is not available for yellow or red traited minstrels. That's a hard choice if you're trying to be hybrid of any kind.
Call to Greatness is available in yellow line as the capstone.
SoS is only available in blue line, not yellow.
TS is only available in blue line, not yellow for a hybrid healer/dps build.
DPS for a red traited minstrel is lower than currently on live, and your self-heals are lower. Still good enough for landscape...
Currently Cry of the Chorus gives 3 healing buffs in yellow but 3 power buffs in healing stance.
The Melody of Battle buff shows up in the Melody/yellow line but gives a damage tick in the healing stance.
Melody is no longer our healing/null stance, it is yellow POS line.
Resonance is our healing/Watcher of Resolve stance.
Call of the Second Age has become a general skill in all trees.

In general the blue/healing line is very OP and boring. If you need more than 3 skills you're doing it wrong in this build. With the legacy and points in blue line Triumphant Spirit cooldown is at 45 seconds and a general skill in place of Inspire Fellows - and it hits for a routine 5-10k at level 85. Chord is very OP with the hots, and Bolster Courage procs a group heal routinely for about 3k in my experience. Those 3 skills alone could be put on 1-2-3 buttons and just watch The Big Bang Theory for entertainment while you play. You don't need skill now, they have in my opinion dumbed it down to the lowest common denominator they could think of.

Yellow line doesn't seem to be as effective at healing or dps as it should be. You can't rez in yellow line, you don't have TS in yellow line, and your dps is not up to a real contribution. All in all I don't see a use for this line at all going forward, and that's a shame.

Red line is underpowered and has less self-healing ability than currently on live. If you go to the moors expect to heal groups or leach because you're not going to be able to solo the way you could before. As for being a viable dps class in groups, you will never be taken if anything else is available.

The class feels very unfinished for only two weeks to release. There is a lot that needs to be addressed and not long to do it before this goes live. I'm sure the changes will need to continue but at the moment it's very sad to me. I disliked losing half my skills at any one time as I tended to use them all situationally, whether raiding, instances, moors, solo playing, or just kicking back with friends in a mixture of any of that. I feel like half a character and not recognizable as the minstrel I have played for 5 years.

As for big battles, I also would compare them to a skirmish rather than a raid. As a minstrel I can't heal NPCs, and my fellows (if I'm in a group) don't take damage. I am left either clicking on items or talking to NPCs to tell them what to do, or trying to dps. Since I love to raid and heal, and I never enjoyed skirmishes ala Thangulhad, it's a huge disappointment to me. My tank friend was unable to pull aggro off the NPCs for more than a few moments and we both found they needed little help from us. We felt rather unnecessary. No, they're not exactly skirmishes, but they're definitely not raid content or instance content and I am extremely disappointed if this is the direction of the future. I don't enjoy them at all.

[Defiant1]

So glad I didn't get the expansion. Read the changes and there is a lot I'm not happy with but not being able to hybrid my champ? That's a deal breaker for me personally.

I will say this though, I had a lot of fun playing this game for three years and I don't regret them. Yes I'm sad I have to move on but I will at least give a sincere thanks to Turbine for that time spent.

Good luck to you all and happy hunting! May we cross paths again, I'm really going to miss this ''world'' but I'm going to miss this community most of all.

[Veria]

I realize it's in the interest of some people who like class changes to make it look like there's this big stalemate with roughly even numbers of people who are for and against them. Yes, opinions on them varies, which aspect in life doesn't. But people coming here reading this thread should make no mistake - there is CLEAR MAJORITY of beta players who don't like or hate the changes. And there's data to support it.

There is player made poll currently on beta for current build, very specifically asking to rate class changes with 6 options, from Love to Dread, eliminating possible double votes etc. It involves few hundred unique voters and is in general discussion. Believe it or not, 100-300 is statistically significant sample for limited amount of players testing LOTRO closed Beta. Polls with 3x bigger sample tell u who's gona win the elections in the free world.

Can't go into specifics as in not to copy, but voters who Love changes can literally be counted on fingers of one hand. Roughly 1/5 Like the changes and just the same amount is in the middle in next 2 options. The last 2 ratings - poor and dread gather clearly more than Obama popular vote in 2008. What's more, of these 2 options, 2x more decides to pick dread.

These are facts. No matter what your opinion in the end will be, you have to keep in mind that proponents of this as of right now speak from the viewpoint of MINORITY and if lotro beta players had their say, there would be no class changes as they are now coming to live.

[chrohandhaivey]

That all being said, I'm still on the fence about returning to LoTRO (a game I have played since launch and have loved in the past). I went from horrified to intrigued by the class changes but many of my old concerns remain. Is focus still placed on solo-content grind? What happened to LoTRO's formerly stellar group content? What is the point in making us specialize now if none of the content requires any specialization? The big battles sound horrible. Is there still terrible lag in Rohan and the Ettenmoors? Are they making any attempt at trying to balance the Moors and addressing concerns players have had with keep and OP mechanics for years? And the biggest complaint: THE GRIND. MY GOD THE GRIND. Grind LIs (please drop this system entirely), grind your horse, grind for random drops, grind to upgrade them. LoTRO is as grindy as the hardcore '90s MMOs. I think even Everquest had less grind.

Solo-content grind focus? Yes
LotRO's group content? Not in this xpack... people will largely focus on the smaller group or solo battles... there's not enough benefit for running the raid battle to entice people to care beyond a few weeks or months after it's been ground to death.
Specialization? That's a question for the devs... perhaps they'll be designing content that requires punitive specialization, but that would mean exclusion of play styles which would be a disaster... testers can't really answer that one for you.
Rohan/Ettens lag? Not in beta... I noticed no lag in East Rohan or Ettens... Doesn't mean it won't hit live servers and get slaughtered by masses. TBD
Moors issues? Short answer, no... There's rumble of them doing things out here in the future, but it's not coming w/ HD or any time on the near horizon that I can tell.
Grind? Grind, slave, grind!!!!!!! Yes, seriously, grind for everything you want.

(Hopefully succinctly answered those questions for you... if you want any extra detail on them I'll try to expound.)

[Mournsigh]

If it takes a year or even 2 years and a level cap of 115 before these changes actually start to make sense then that is a massive fail on their part, people want to play their classes NOW, they want to enjoy the game NOW, not struggle through in the hope than in a year or 2 it may get better.

This game has been going for 7 years with this system, to rip it up and gut it with the premise that the new one might be viable this time next year is just utterly ridiculous.

There is too much happening in the gaming world right now for people to stick around and invest their time and money in a game that might work properly sometime in the future, especially when their are other alternatives out there now that are working fine and dont ask their customers to hang around with them while time passes in order for what they implemented to start working properly.

In other words if these trees are not up to standard the day they are released then they should not be released at all.

Sure I totally agree, which is why I'm - for the last time - placing some faith in what they are doing now having some real potential to grow. I don't want or expect that to take even a year, I want us to be able to see the next direction they're taking with specialisms SOON. I wouldn't be hoping this if I didn't wholeheartedly agree with the need to rethink the classes which is what they have embarked upon. Whether they will be daring enough to take specialisms forward in an interesting way with more satisfying class-gameplay than the game has languished with for the last few years, is another question, I agree.

[Peresbert]

Oh, really? You have access to their bug tracking software?

Helm's Deep is nowhere near as buggy as Riders of Rohan was this close to release. Fact.

I don't have access to bug tracking software, but you do have access to player feedback. When you see many respectable players, some in the council, say it is, you have to believe. Also it helps when the "+" I was talking to kind of admitted they are in a tight spot in a private conversation. I personally have never seen so many bugs in key content and mechanics this close to release in any game I have tested.

[Darkheart06]

Solo-content grind focus? Yes
LotRO's group content? Not in this xpack... people will largely focus on the smaller group or solo battles... there's not enough benefit for running the raid battle to entice people to care beyond a few weeks or months after it's been ground to death.
Specialization? That's a question for the devs... perhaps they'll be designing content that requires punitive specialization, but that would mean exclusion of play styles which would be a disaster... testers can't really answer that one for you.
Rohan/Ettens lag? Not in beta... I noticed no lag in East Rohan or Ettens... Doesn't mean it won't hit live servers and get slaughtered by masses. TBD
Moors issues? Short answer, no... There's rumble of them doing things out here in the future, but it's not coming w/ HD or any time on the near horizon that I can tell.
Grind? Grind, slave, grind!!!!!!! Yes, seriously, grind for everything you want.

(Hopefully succinctly answered those questions for you... if you want any extra detail on them I'll try to expound.)

That's pretty succinct, thanks

The issue with the grind is tied with the focus on solo content. Grinding in SoA to Moria to Mirkwood wasn't bad because with a good kinship or even just a close group of friends, you could plow through it pretty painlessly. Skirmishes, horrible Hytbold? Not so much. I didn't even look at Hytbold. It's pure masochism. It seems like the big battles aren't much different. Ya, I know you can buy your way through it but over the years I've probably spent more money on this game than Warner Bros. has

No lag is nice to hear but ya, it going live is a whole other story. My memory of Moors performance and my ice skating war steed are still pretty painful...

[Dworin]

I think the most discouraging thing I have seen so far is that I spent a lot of TP on my sword for my Guardian, but now if I want to trait to tank, 4 of the 5 major legacies I built up will be useless. They are in the yellow line and traiting blue to tank will gimp my sword immensely. Unless I spend a bunch more TP. *sigh*

[Andthelion]

That all being said, I'm still on the fence about returning to LoTRO (a game I have played since launch and have loved in the past). I went from horrified to intrigued by the class changes but many of my old concerns remain. Is focus still placed on solo-content grind? What happened to LoTRO's formerly stellar group content? What is the point in making us specialize now if none of the content requires any specialization? The big battles sound horrible. Is there still terrible lag in Rohan and the Ettenmoors? Are they making any attempt at trying to balance the Moors and addressing concerns players have had with keep and OP mechanics for years? And the biggest complaint: THE GRIND. MY GOD THE GRIND. Grind LIs (please drop this system entirely), grind your horse, grind for random drops, grind to upgrade them. LoTRO is as grindy as the hardcore '90s MMOs. I think even Everquest had less grind.

Solo content grind - Yes, more so than ever.
Group Content - Well BBs have x1 3 man, x1 6 man and x1 12 man, however they are NOT group content that you are used to, think skirms not raids.And that is all the new content you will ever get, I do believe that the already scales stuff like mirkwood and OD will be scaled again though.
Specialization - No idea of the thinking behind this, thats a question for blue name to be honest.
Big Battles - I hate them, others love them, all I can say is wait for open BETA and try before you buy, the expansion revolves around them so make sure they are for you before spending money on the expac
Lag - seemed better tbh, they have been actively trying to fix this outside of beta as well.
Moors balance - well it will be a nightmare at first , there is no doubt about it, they are still yet to balance all the freep classes properly and there wont be any creep balancing until all that has been sorted out, dont expect any progress there for a while
THE GRIND - sorry to say, but if you found hytbold grindy(which i am assuming you did as you havent played in over a year) then you are not gonna like the grind with the new end game, the big battles are a HUGE grindy time sink if you wanna finish it all, LIs are still here and will need redoing again, the random loot system means you have no idea of progression when trying to obtain gear, basically there are people who win what they want on run 1 and people still without the same item on run number 500, if the RNG likes you its not a grind, if it hates you its the worst kind of grind, lengthy, repetative and no way of knowing when its gonna end.

[Barruktp]

OVERALL: This xpack should be filled with many, many good things. It should be entertaining for a wide variety of players for at least a period of time. The community should expect to have to alter their active play style or mental approach to a class in order to gain the most enjoyment and benefit. Save for the minstrel (which it cannot be possible for them to correct the massive number of problems in time for launch, especially given the multi-month ignoring of feedback before now), this looks to be a solid xpack, though there may be a little roughness with the big battles immediately after launch until they are tweaked and patched (this last statement could change in time for launch if they focus on getting it right, so it's a tentative assessment). Ultimately I'm looking forward to HD, but I'll be playing my hunter and captain from now on as primary characters instead of secondary ones and my minstrel will get shelved.

This is my feeling exactly. It's too bad, because I rejoined Lotro after a fairly long haitus and leveled a minstrel to 85 from scratch in the last year just to experience the Orion build. It was/is a joy to play. After trying the minstrel in betas 4 and 5, I have absolutely nothing to look forward to, no incentive to play that class in HD. I guess it's back to captain, which is cool because that was my original main and I still enjoy the class tremendously. I also look forward to burg and hunter, they look like they have some good changes going.

I'm just perplexed/confounded at the poor showing on minstrel and warden development during the beta period. I'm sure the dev in question is a wonderful person and a skilled programmer, but they really should have asked for help.

[robbie1435]

I have been playing since Dec 2007. The only two betas I was not a part of were Moria and Shadows of Angmar. I have been in every other major beta since.

My initial feelings when logging into the start of the HD beta were mostly feelings of frustration tinged with disappointment. I tried traiting my captain similar to my set up on live. Fighting felt awkward - the animations did not mesh well with the way I had been fighting for years. I had lost skills I used regularly. It was confusing and frustrating. I was previously a hybrid leaning captain and now I was being pigeon-holed! It felt terrible.

I didn't log back in for a few days because of this. But I knew I should try and test it and really figure out what it was specifically that I found frustrating and out of whack with my live captain. So I took a deep breath, grabbed a pen and paper and logged back in again. I tried different trait layouts while doing skirmishes. I wrote down specific skills I felt I needed in order to be efficient. I wrote down traits or numbers in the trait trees I felt were off. And then I took all of my notes and posted them to the class forums, describing why I was having problems and what I thought could fix those problems.

And over the course of the beta rounds, more and more and more changes came to the classes.

And now I can log into Bullroarer and my captain feels much more in-line with how she is on live now. Is it different? Yes. You will have to make some compromises and decisions on the trait tree. Skills are no longer an open buffet. However I feel they are much more potent and I feel like I have much more definition now.

I am now excited for the changes and eagerly await Nov 18.

Thank you for giving us your view on the captain. Glad to see that at least *some* of our regular skills are staying. I'm not excited after reading this post, so let's see!

[Palentian]

I realize it's in the interest of some people who like class changes to make it look like there's this big stalemate with roughly even numbers of people who are for and against them. Yes, opinions on them varies, which aspect in life doesn't. But people coming here reading this thread should make no mistake - there is CLEAR MAJORITY of beta players who don't like or hate the changes. And there's data to support it.

There is player made poll currently on beta for current build, very specifically asking to rate class changes with 6 options, from Love to Dread, eliminating possible double votes etc. It involves few hundred unique voters and is in general discussion. Believe it or not, 100-300 is statistically significant sample for limited amount of players testing LOTRO closed Beta. Polls with 3x bigger sample tell u who's gona win the elections in the free world.

Can't go into specifics as in not to copy, but voters who Love changes can literally be counted on fingers of one hand. Roughly 1/5 Like the changes and just the same amount is in the middle in next 2 options. The last 2 ratings - poor and dread gather clearly more than Obama popular vote in 2008. What's more, of these 2 options, 2x more decides to pick dread.

These are facts. No matter what your opinion in the end will be, you have to keep in mind that proponents of this as of right now speak from the viewpoint of MINORITY and if lotro beta players had their say, there would be no class changes as they are now coming to live.

Look, I didn't want to get in on this whole "poll" thing AGAIN...........The polls (yes, plural) have already been explained as flawed. You don't have the numbers to judge the accuracy of them. They are NOT representative of Beta. Only a few vocal testers. 100-300 people aren't statistically significant even if there were only 1000 people in Beta. There was more than that. Those that DID express an interest or ANY form of support for the changes were set upon by this vocal minority until they stopped posting in Beta General at all. This doesn't mean you're right, it only means some people have thinner skins than you.

[Barruktp]

I realize it's in the interest of some people who like class changes to make it look like there's this big stalemate with roughly even numbers of people who are for and against them. Yes, opinions on them varies, which aspect in life doesn't. But people coming here reading this thread should make no mistake - there is CLEAR MAJORITY of beta players who don't like or hate the changes. And there's data to support it.

There is player made poll currently on beta for current build, very specifically asking to rate class changes with 6 options, from Love to Dread, eliminating possible double votes etc. It involves few hundred unique voters and is in general discussion. Believe it or not, 100-300 is statistically significant sample for limited amount of players testing LOTRO closed Beta. Polls with 3x bigger sample tell u who's gona win the elections in the free world.

Can't go into specifics as in not to copy, but voters who Love changes can literally be counted on fingers of one hand. Roughly 1/5 Like the changes and just the same amount is in the middle in next 2 options. The last 2 ratings - poor and dread gather clearly more than Obama popular vote in 2008. What's more, of these 2 options, 2x more decides to pick dread.

These are facts. No matter what your opinion in the end will be, you have to keep in mind that proponents of this as of right now speak from the viewpoint of MINORITY and if lotro beta players had their say, there would be no class changes as they are now coming to live.

Look, I didn't want to get in on this whole "poll" thing AGAIN...........The polls (yes, plural) have already been explained as flawed. You don't have the numbers to judge the accuracy of them. They are NOT representative of Beta. Only a few vocal testers. 100-300 people aren't statistically significant even if there were only 1000 people in Beta. There was more than that. Those that DID express an interest or ANY form of support for the changes were set upon by this vocal minority until they stopped posting in Beta General at all. This doesn't mean you're right, it only means some people have thinner skins than you.

10-30% response is very much statistically significant. Also, people who were in favor of the changes had every much as opportunity to participate in the polls as those who did not. Furthermore, the class website polls were neither more or less flawed than the forum polls, so you can't say that one was superior to the other. So unless you have concrete feedback from the rest of the beta population, you are on a very flimsy stand.