An Urgent Message for Blues, ZC in Particular

In the last Hunter update you were widely praised and made the vast majority of players happy with the Class and thankful that you were taking such good care of us.

In the discussion that you started about your planned changes to the Class for RoI many people were not happy with your initial ideas, but were happy that you were throwing them out there for us to see. In your subsequent post in the topic you said you were listening to the complaints and would change some of your proposals that were not received so well by the community. Again, this made people happy that you were at least talking to us.

As I understand it, that was your last post. There has apparently been not one post by ZC in the Hunter section of the beta forums, and I certainly don't remember seeing any here. According to the Dev Tracker, ZC last posted (aside from a funny comment in General Discussion) in the RK thread about Desired Changes (itself a worrisome thread, given that "Desired Changes" has a substantially different meaning to the Hunter thread - "Upcoming Changes") in early June.

Now, with the NDA being lifted, we are getting information that is having the reverse effect of your last update - instead of being praised, these changes are being met with confusion, disappointment, anger and the feeling that Hunters are being relegated to third-class citizens in their primary role.

You gave us something great the last time, now you're taking most of that away. What was the point? What was the reasoning? What is the point of a beta test if the testers are going to be ignored? Why are you silent?. I realise that things may change and the information we have so far received is not necessarily how the final live build will be, but right now we get the impression that that will be exactly what will be released. The less communication we have, the angrier people are getting.

We need some communication. We need answers. Since there was apparently no communication at all, up to this point, in the beta forums we need to know what is going on and whether the reports coming in from beta players are accurate, and will be in the live build. We need to hear from any Blue, but ZC in particular.

Well put, +rep.

I think the majority of hunters are VERY happy about the current state of their class. The changes to the class from the beginning of the year were great. Players were happy, the class is powerful, but not OP, players enjoy both the red and the blue line and there's a lot of discussion about the optimal build and different playstyles.

The changes ZC proposed and commented on before in this thread caused a lot of discussion, but the coments taken as a whole are quite constructive.

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Originally Posted by Zombie_Columbus

First off, to the "but we just got updated!" people. Rumblings in other class forums may have begun to tip you off that more then just the Hunter is getting some work. We haven't made global announcements yet, but I think it may be fairly clear where this is going. Also, it will be some months before anything I've teased here hits game.

Next, I want to give a big thankyou to the whole Hunter community here. The debate and discussion has been very helpful! I very much wanted to just throw some chum in the water and see what happened. While I didn't know exactly what to expect, I'm glad for what I did get.

[snip]

I think that's the important stuff. I'm going to be out for two weeks after this, so don't expect any more info any time soon. Please do continue discussing things, talking about what you want and don't want, and focus on examples, not hyperbole :)

GL, HF!

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This is the last thing I saw ZC writing in our forums - on May 12th! There is no sign ZC read the rest of the discussion which dried after about 26 pages. I was impressed that there seemed a to be real interest in the playerbase's feedback in the beginning, but now I am even more disappointed about the behaviour of the developers in charge. Two weeks off? It feels more like 3 months in retrospect. Isn't it disgusting that there wasn't any communication with the playerbase at all?

After ZC's very own thread I was confident that the devs had a good grasp of both the class and the wishes of the players. Nobody expected another complete overhaul, especially for the worse. Now nearly everyone seems to cross his fingers for the changes currently on beta not to be the same when RoI goes live.

After the beautiful changes to the class in spring and the very well-designed raid I thought buying the expansion would be a no-brainer. I even considered gifting one to my wife to get her playing the game again. But at the moment I am more than happy that I didn't preorder it... and as it stands now, I will neither buy the x-pac nor will I prolong my subscription after my current one expires.

English is not my first language, but I hope you'll get my thoughts.

I'm assuming that, as I've said in another place, Other People are Smart Too.™

If we see how wretched and clunky the changes are, I'd imagine They do too. There has been more than ample feedback that this situation, as we say in my newly adopted home, just ain't right, bless its heart.

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Originally Posted by spiralsatori

I'm assuming that, as I've said in another place, Other People are Smart Too.™

If we see how wretched and clunky the changes are, I'd imagine They do too. There has been more than ample feedback that this situation, as we say in my newly adopted home, just ain't right, bless its heart.

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Overall I agree with you. Back in SoM there were some horrible problems in beta with Hunter combat/animation, and after a lot of vocal feedback from the hunter community, everything got fixed. In the past, they tend to correct class problems in beta more-so than instances/quests. The major difference, and what the OP is really worried about, is that there has been zero communication for the Dev we all believe is spearheading the changes to our class since MAY 12th. In SoM beta, Devs were fairly involved with the forums, and even made comments to the point of: we know there are problems, look for fixes in the next build. And Lo, there were changes, and they were good. Even if ZC posted 1 sentence: "We hear you, expect changes in the next build." A lot of anxiety would be alleviated. Communication has never Turbine's strong point, but I can only hope it's because they are so busy fixing things they don't have time to get on the forums and post.

There's a big difference between lack of communication and the complete ignorance of the communities satisfaction with the last hunter update by completely reworking the hunter class AGAIN for RoI. I just don't get it... we were actually pretty happy, boards were active, people were playing hunter alot... again... so they decide to put a ton of man hours into redoing everything they just put a ton of man hours into redoing.... if they are that flush with cash/manpower why aren't they fixing #### that's been broken for ages instead of making stuff worse? :p

Hunters have *NEVER* had good communication from our devs. It is sad but true. 2 years ago we had a similar thread to this one. Begging and pleading for someone to reply to our concerns. That thread was spawned by a 4-6 month long silence and it took a long time before ever getting a response.

Those of us who have been around for awhile have gotten used to the fact that the devs do not care about providing feedback to the Hunter community, you just have to learn to deal with it.

The disconcerting thing to me was mentioned earlier, there has also been absolutely zero feedback in the beta forums. In all of the previous betas the devs were at least semi active on those boards. In this beta there has been absolutely NOTHING from the devs. Dark times are rising in the east....

im praying that the bad stuff theyve talked about is just a cruel trick and what we need to do is to post something in this thread every day so it will stay at or near the top of hunters forum page

Is there any other way we can contact the Blues then?

I fear even this post will not get any responses, and the hunter will essentially be (totally) ruined if these changes goes live.

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Originally Posted by Erasmus354

Hunters have *NEVER* had good communication from our devs. It is sad but true. 2 years ago we had a similar thread to this one. Begging and pleading for someone to reply to our concerns. That thread was spawned by a 4-6 month long silence and it took a long time before ever getting a response.

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Kinda silly to say that it's /just/ hunters. I think burg...is much....much...much worse off.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

Kinda silly to say that it's /just/ hunters. I think burg...is much....much...much worse off.

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Burgs are better and even if their dev is terrible on communication, he made changes that made ppl happy, so no one (or very few) is complaining anyway. It's kinda more like every class that Orion does not have lead dev position on anyway with ZC being a little worse this time around.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

Kinda silly to say that it's /just/ hunters. I think burg...is much....much...much worse off.

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Burgs only have slightly better Dev communication than Hunters, but that's still better than Hunters so you're wrong.

And Burgs are getting a serious buff to their dps capabilities, leading me to believe that they will fill more of a dps/debuff role. Instead of their current support role. So it doesn't really matter if the Dev communication is bad for burgs, all the burgs I know and talk to are extremely happy with the changes and aren't too worried with the encroaching LMs on their niche.

Hunters and a few other classes arent the only ones being ignored. Turbine has been ignoreing most very important forum posts. One in perticular is the stuff about ROI purchaseing in the LOTRO store and other stuff like its cost (and if it will be in parts), that will cost people money or will cause them no end of problems if they make the wrong choice. Turbine is a pretty good company but listening to the important things is something they need to work on and should work on if they want their players to be more in touch with them.

As for the hunter changes, i am a little scared about this whole new dirrection of the changes that revamps all the hard work they just did that 95% of hunters love and thank turbine for. We just want a little conformation on a topic or 2 so we can stop worrying and asking you about every other problem.

Over all we need to trust turbine that they will do the right thing. They should tell us in turn a thing or 2 of what they are planning to do so we can give them a hint or 2 on what we like and dislike. And they only need to post a sentence or 3 so as i said before can stop worrying and trust them.

"A good compromise leaves everyone unhappy" From Eragon book series. :) If we get to work along i think we will find LOTRO will rise up to the level it can be at.

I hope this post reflects on some wisdom that the stuff of turbine and the players of LOTRO can use so we all get along.

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Originally Posted by PiggyManHero

Burgs only have slightly better Dev communication than Hunters, but that's still better than Hunters so you're wrong.

And Burgs are getting a serious buff to their dps capabilities, leading me to believe that they will fill more of a dps/debuff role. Instead of their current support role. So it doesn't really matter if the Dev communication is bad for burgs, all the burgs I know and talk to are extremely happy with the changes and aren't too worried with the encroaching LMs on their niche.

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Originally Posted by Eldrandir

Burgs are better and even if their dev is terrible on communication, he made changes that made ppl happy, so no one (or very few) is complaining anyway. It's kinda more like every class that Orion does not have lead dev position on anyway with ZC being a little worse this time around.

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You guys keep talking about all these happy burgs and yet this forum [ http://forums.lotro.com/forumdisplay.php?5-Burglars ] says the exact opposite?

Regardless stating that /only/ hunters are being ignored is incorrect.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

You guys keep talking about all these happy burgs and yet this forum [ http://forums.lotro.com/forumdisplay.php?5-Burglars ] says the exact opposite?

Regardless stating that /only/ hunters are being ignored is incorrect.

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They sure do look happy to me....

I know -I- am about my burg. Instant +30-40% melee offense? Hell yeah I'm happy about the changes. We're gonna have to worry about burgs out dpsing us too you know.

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Originally Posted by Starrywisdom

You guys keep talking about all these happy burgs and yet this forum [ http://forums.lotro.com/forumdisplay.php?5-Burglars ] says the exact opposite?

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So I have a choice between believing a forum of some unhappy burgs, or several glffs of very happy burgs? I am going with the glff. Not only that, but when I went to your link I found over 6 pages of very happy burgs excitedly talking about their dps increase. Almost all the negativity I found on the threads I looked at was from you.

Guards feel pretty ignored too.

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Originally Posted by Malephor

Guards feel pretty ignored too.

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Its cause they're unkillable atm. Notice all the PvP guardians lately? mmmhhmmm

Getting back on track please...

I am sure that there are other classes that feel neglected as well. We all have out pet peeves and it is frustrating when we feel we are not listened to at all.

Now this post is a message to the Blues regarding the Hunter (and feel free to make a similar post in the other class threads if you like), and how we have not heard anything since May 12th, and even that message was shot, uncommitted and frankly vague.

Compared to some class developers who had a back and forth communication with their players, who wrote status reports about the development and asked for input, and who responded to them. (Like the LM pet changing from a cow to a limraf... go Belegwe! (grr in ruining the fun with laughing at the cow, though)). Compared to that great communication and co-work, of course we feel let down. Of course we, (and everyone else) wants the same level of commitment.

So this post is an outcry to the Blues that our feeling of lack of love goes beyond this and that personal pet peeve, but on the hunter community at large.

An class update will of course have some ups and some downs, but it is important for the health of the community that we end up on the plus side when adding the elements up.

Especially in an expansion we need to feel valued and excited about that is coming.

With RoI - we do not.

Of the five (66-75) new skills we got, it seems that three of them will outright make our classes *poorer* for choosing them, and the last two has no real change at all.

Even with our focus burn playstyle we barely keep up with the (easy) dps playstyle of the champ, runekeeper and OP guardian. With that possibility gone, we have lost one of our key roles in any groups.

The desire to move us away from this role I am sure is fueled by a wish to have us try out other roles and combinations, but unfortunately by blocking the really only viable role we had in a group (excluding our CC role) this will not have the desired effect.

By taking the sustained dps role away from us, we are left with no real role in a group. We have been lowered to a support class, and a poor one at that.

The changes coming with RoI is very far from what the hunter community want, and it is even further from what is needed to make us have a clear role in a group and to give the group a desire to add a hunter.

Left with an red trait line which because of the higher focus cost, will no longer be a valueable dps trait line,
and with a yellow, CC line, which is good, but of course no where as good as the LM and burglar,
and an undefined blue trait line which takes us nowhere really.
We are left with no specialization.

And when we hear nothing from the developers, given no heed to our concerns etc. we have making this post in hopes that the Blues will take notice and hopefully not dismiss this as a whine about a pet peeve project, but a concern about the community as a whole and a concern about the future role and value of the hunter class.

After all, we just want to play our preferred class and have fun doing so. We wish to feel that we have a role in the wonderful world of Middle-Earth and we wish to feel that we contribute to the fun when we play with our friends.

So please take heed to our concerns and thank you for reading.

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Originally Posted by MurkyMajare

....and when we hear nothing from the developers, given no heed to our concerns etc. ....... but a concern about the community as a whole and a concern about the future role and value of the hunter class.....

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Well written!!!
As I, like others, have been around since early Beta (and thus have some experience with developers and their "love" for the hunter), I personally see the situation as follows:
Developers have no real idea what the role and value of the Hunter in LOTRO is or should be.
The Hunter has been pushed around for years. He originally started as the single target DPS class, from then on, the role definition deteriorated and got blurred year after year, update after update. Hunters are said to be one of the easiest classes to be played, which might be true, but the persons behind the hunters, certainly developed a high degree of flexibility and situational adaptiveness!
Anyway, my best guess: Hunter changes will go through as they basically are (maybe one or the other little percentage change, but the structure won't change...yet).
A major shakeout of in-game hunters, and in 3-6 months, after the hot-fix season is through, one or the other developer, that feels bored, will have a look at this part of the forum and start working on one or the other hunter community issue that have been reported and raised months ago (in fact now).
The hunter role will still not be clearer defined, but be rather more blurry and undigested, but at least the hunter community will be satisfied with the scraps from the developers tables ("didn't we listen to some of their grievances?!"), until we enter the next round with the next major content and level update in about 1 -1,5 years.
Get it, Hunters have been and always will be at the bottom of the food chain in regards to developers' apatite for defining a role and thus adequately equipping the class to fulfil that role.

I don't say "give up hope", all I say is, don't expect that the structure will change dramatically and that you'll be listened to until later, after RoI has some months on its back and resources are available again. When this date draws closer, we should have a well structured grievance list at hand (supported by numbers, as this is basically all they base their changes on), to make it for the sepcific developer, who was given some time to spend on the hunter, as easy and effective (and painless) as possible.

See you in Middle Earth

What I don't get is that Orion has time to write poems for the Wa(r)dens, and write multiple replies in the Minstrel threads, etc... but whoever's in charge of this class update won't even take the time to drop in and say "Your concerns are noted, and we're either acting or not acting on them, for this reason:". Not here, and not in the beta forum. It makes me confused. Sure, Other People Are Smart Too™ but there does come a point where a bone needs to be thrown. :p

Well, at least we are not going to be lone nerf victims, RK's complain as much as we are :/ Oh well - out of my three favourite characters at least my warden will be still enjoyable to play ;) And in couple of months (probably around winter festival) there will be another round of updates that'll fix things we'll be crying about loudest. Im still vexed though :(

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Originally Posted by Scotius

Well, at least we are not going to be lone nerf victims, RK's complain as much as we are :/ Oh well - out of my three favourite characters at least my warden will be still enjoyable to play ;) And in couple of months (probably around winter festival) there will be another round of updates that'll fix things we'll be crying about loudest. Im still vexed though :(

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Tell me about it :D

My main is hunter(dps), and alts warden(tank) plus runekeeper(healer).

they seem to be making our class too flexable its like they are trying to makes us be able to do any thing the problem is with doing that they cant makes us good in any area becouse that would make us op i think they should make it simple. 3 trait lines

one for high dmg (per hit) but not neccasarily higher dps and cc (not nerfed cc and dps though)

one for high dps and not for higher dmg (per hit) and cc (again not nerfing those area though)

and one for cc (by now u should ssee what im saying so im not gonna re type what ive previuosly said again)

and make each traitline adjust our skills to fit their appropiate area. doing this you could have three different jobs and make us good at them instead of tryng to make us dps, support, poor off off off tank, and any other little things u can think of

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Originally Posted by Scotius

Well, at least we are not going to be lone nerf victims, RK's complain as much as we are :/

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However, their fire upgrades put them higher then us on the dps scale, and although lightning is nerfed it is still very powerful in the Moors AND RKs can now clear all slow debuffs whenever they wish upon getting a special R8 chisel, so even though they are getting a few nerfs they are still a lot more powerful then beta hunters. Our one advantage over RKs has always been sustained dps and the new fire removes that. (Also, just to be ominous because I can) Burgs have gotten so many dps upgrades that they feel as long as a cappy or food or w/e is helping their power they can even out dps a champ. Not to sure about that, but out parsing a hunter will be easy. I suppose I should also add that RKs are comforting themselves by looking at us and thinking those poor huntards lol

(Last repentance is a partial joke, some of them are actually doing that but certainly not all or even a majority)

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Originally Posted by spiralsatori

What I don't get is that Orion has time to write poems for the Wa(r)dens

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Those are so awesome.

@ZC We can has poems too???
Perhaps the changes in the format of an epic ballad, since your an RK writing an epic should be no problem, you already wrote one for the ages.

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Originally Posted by Eldrandir

We can has poems too?

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A funny poem
You can not
Have because
You is rot

Maybe when
You is more better
You will get
A rhymey letter