Update 27: The Great Wedding Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 27: The Great Wedding, released on Tuesday, June 30th. 

Of Special Note:

The Great Wedding

Hail and greetings to thee, friend of all Free Folk!

Be it known that

Aragorn II Elessar, King of Gondor and Arnor

Son of Arathorn and Gilraen

and

Arwen Undómiel

Daughter of Elrond and Celebrían

request the honour of thy company at their most joyous wedding and the union of Elves and Men

at the Citadel of Minas Tirith on Midsummer’s Day

Please answer, by errand-rider or Eagle

And present thyself to the King at the Tower of Ecthelion

Feasting and merriment to follow at the Hall of Merethrond and throughout the city

Middle-earth is gathering in Minas Tirith to celebrate the wedding of Arwen and Aragorn! Epic Volume V, Book 1: 'A Time of Celebration' begins with King Elessar in the Throne Room of Minas Tirith (Midsummer). Additionally, from now through July 20th, players can take part in celebratory Midsummer quests and instances to celebrate the wedding. An auto-bestow quest is available that provides a map to Minas Tirith (Midsummer) as well. Once there, an introduction quest will get you started on the Midsummer Festival. Additionally, some Stable-masters in Middle-earth will bring characters to Minas Tirith (Midsummer). Finally, Midsummer Wedding-planners are located in Thorin's Hall, Duillond, Bree-town, and the Party Tree to direct players to Midsummer quests in those areas. Earn titles, an emote, a kite, and more by completing Deeds associated with the Midsummer Festival! The Midsummer Festival will be a yearly event.

Storied Tales

A Storied Tale is a solo-able, story-focused alternative to an Epic Battle. Each of the five Helm's Deep Epic Battles now has a Storied Tale, and for each Helm's Deep quest you can choose to complete either the Epic Battle or the Storied Tale. As a result, many quests in Epic Volume III Book 13 have been versioned, and you will need to pick up the quest from its bestower if you had it underway. The Storied Tales are intended to be played on a character that has never completed Helm's Deep. Each successful completion will add the Storied Tale to the West Rohan Reflecting Pool in Dunharrow. Characters that have already completed Helm's Deep and want to experience the Storied Tales can speak to Cenric on the field of victory outside of Helm's Deep (Sunrise). He will offer you a quest to play the Storied Tales, and completing them here will also add them to the West Rohan Reflecting Pool in Dunharrow. However, be advised that you will need to use the time-changing objects in Helm's Deep after every Storied Tale in order to return to Cenric, so the experience will not have as satisfying a flow as it would if you were playing on a fresh character. 

News and Notes:

Classes

• Beorning

  • Hearten and Composure have had their cooldowns increased to 20 seconds, and their healing pulses reduced to every two seconds for 12 seconds. 

  • Bee Swarm's base tick damage has been increased, and is now more comparable to greater swarm damage.

  • Greater Swarm's Trait now correctly indicates that only its damage is area of effect, not its debuff effects. 

  • Expose Weakness' tooltip now changes correctly depending on form. 

  • Guarded Attack now describes how its buff stacks up to five times.

  • Claw Swipe now describes how its buff stacks up to three times.

  • Due to Beorning trait changes, Beorning trait trees will be reset upon login and your trait points will be refunded.

• Captain

  • The Captain Trait Set Bonus tooltip now reflects that it provides a mitigation bonus instead of an armour bonus.

• Guardian

  • Flash of Light has had its damage reduced. However, this ability will now properly benefit from added light damage bonuses from Legendary Items at higher levels.

• Hunter

  • All hunter fire skills now benefit from fire damage bonuses.

  • The cooldown on the trait Hail of Arrows now works on a per-target basis.

• Lore-master

  • Lore-master skills no longer cost morale.

  • The Level-headed trait now reduces power costs instead of morale costs. 

  • Enfeeble now correctly buffs the initial 10 second version of each of its effects.

Crafting

• Fixed an issue where the icons for the Sapphire and Polished Sapphire had been reversed for a long time. The Sapphire icon also now looks more uncut.

Hobbit Gifts

• Wedding themed gifts have been added to daily and weekly Hobbit Gifts. Through the end of July, silver 'Boosts' presents and gold 'Advanced Supplies' presents will include an extra cosmetic gift in celebration of this Midsummer wedding.

Housing

• The Superior crafting facilities available from the LOTRO Store have been adjusted so they are all placeable in indoor or outdoor housing decoration hooks, and in smaller hooks where possible, in order to improve the flexibility of their placement. Small furniture items can still be placed in large and special furniture hooks. Small yard items can still be placed in large, huge, and enormous hooks.

• Players can now designate a property as their Primary Residence in the Player House Info panel. Only one property can be specified as primary at a time, and Kinship properties cannot be selected. 

• Members of kinships that own a kinship house now earn a new "Travel to Kinship Member's House" skill. Use the new Visit button in the Social Kinship panel to visit any member who has specified a Primary Residence from their Character Houses panel. Clicking on the skill itself will always take you to the last property set from pressing the Visit button. 

Items

• The Imbued Legendary Item tier cap has been increased. There are now four additional levels for DPS/HPS Legacies, two of which can be unlocked, and two of which are granted for free.

• Lost Lore: Tauralindalë - The housing item for this Lost Lore now contains a spoken audio recording of the Westron translation for this text.

• Trophy items that cannot be turned in for tasks are no longer classified as task items. They will also no longer go into Task Carry-alls. Instead, these items will be classified as "Junk" and display as Junk in the item tooltips.

• The following travel skill scrolls are no longer Indestructible: Return to Dale, Guide to Dale, Muster in Dale, Return to Járnfast, Guide to Járnfast, Muster in Járnfast, Return to Skarháld, Guide to Skarháld, Muster in Skarháld, Return to Hultvis, Guide to Hultvis, Muster in Hultvis, Return to Beorninghús, Guide to Beorninghús, Muster in Beorninghús, Return to Estolad Lân, Guide to Estolad Lân, Muster in Estolad Lân, Return to Limlók, Guide to Limlók, and Muster in Limlók.

• Fixed an issue where crafting recipe totals would sometimes reflect the wrong totals calculated from Carry-all bag contents.

• Carry-all bag sorting has been improved when items are added to an already-sorted list.

• The Tome of the Swarm Bees can be bartered for even if you already have the skill trained.

Quests and Adventure Areas

• Legendary Worlds

  • It is now possible to cancel Legendary Server endgame quests.

  • Quest: Legendary Mirkwood: Sammath Gûl - Now only bestows on Tier 2

• Tournament of the Twins

  • Stacking XP buffs will no longer allow XP to be earned by running Instances.

  • The Register of Heroes now lists the top 250 players. Note: You can see your personal score in the chat every time you earn points, even if you are not high enough to appear on the Register of Heroes.

• Remmorchant, The Net of Darkness

  • This raid has had some balance work done on Tier 4 and 5 difficulty. 

  • Players who have completed the Deed Remmorchant, The Net of Darkness - Tier 3 can now barter for item level 430 Remmorchant class set gear. Trade-in Remmorchant set gear will also update to item level 430. 

  • Tier 4 and 5 now have their own chests (previously they were shared with Tier 3)

  • Thossulun the Massive encounter adjustments:

    • Reduced the morale pools of the Daughters of Thossulun

    • Increased cooldown of Winged Grodbog's Poison Sting to 10 seconds (was 7). Now also has a 10 second initial cooldown.

    • Reduced damage of Grodbog Blight-spitter's Bombard

    • Increased cooldown and inital cooldown of Grodbog Blight-spitter's Bombard to 10 seconds (was 7)

    • Reduced damage of Grodbog Blight-spitter's Acid Spit

• A number of largely non-visible changes have taken place to improve game performance in Minas Tirith. 

• Quest: A Treacherous Crevasses - This quest now bestows properly. If you had this quest underway, you will need to restart the quest. 

• Quest: Merchants of Avardin - Eva - A previously unreachable quest item has come out of hiding and is now reachable. 

• Deed: The Line of Kings: The Plaque for King Aldamar has been returned to its proper place.

• Deed: The Orcs of Urugarth - Only Orcs count towards this deed now.

• Stable-masters now use random appearance sets in most cases. 

• Half of all general stable-masters are now female. 

• Fixed a soft spot in a wall in Sungergrót.

• Quest and item text has been corrected for A Message from Stangard.

• Mash will now remove the correct amount of slimy slug meat from inventories when turned in. 

• Broken Longswords will now remove said swords from inventories when turned in for Tasks. 

• Typo corrections and other minor adjustments made in several quests. 

• Distant flickering and z-fighting has been addressed in a rendering rework. Distant geometry will now appear as intended, preserving a consistent depth and order.

• DX10/11 dynamic shadows have had various artifacts corrected, such as shadow acne.

• Various trees are no longer growing in the middle of bolders in southern Ered Luin.

• Various spawns in a section of the Bonevales will no longer occur under ground.

• Terrain seam in the Redhorn Gate has been fixed.

• Floating debris in Gorthad has been removed.

Traits

• Players can now earn up to 96 class trait points after completing the Great Wedding - The Wedding Banquet. Up to 95 class trait points can be spent in your class trait trees.

UI

• A Clear button has been added to the Sound Filter UI.

• Fixed the Smoky Black Pony/Horse preview in the Collections panel. 

• Fixed the Storm-cloud Pet preview in the Collections panel.

• The Kinship panel has been rearranged to make better use of space. 

 

Known Issues:

• Monster Play - Slayer Deeds are not properly being bestowed to Monster Players when they defeat enemies. This only affects bestowal; any Monster Player who already has a Deed can still advance it. This will be corrected as soon as possible.