Bullroarer Update 23 (Build #1) - Preview and General Feedback

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

We're making changes to the gear in the boxes for the next Bullroarer. The highest they can have will be 370 incomparable gear. Essences will also come down. The Tier 2 instance gear hasn't been shown yet as well.

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Make them un ashable and now we're heading somewhere

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

We're making changes to the gear in the boxes for the next Bullroarer. The highest they can have will be 370 incomparable gear. Essences will also come down. The Tier 2 instance gear hasn't been shown yet as well.

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On the top of that remove chest lock and we can call it a decent update.
And I hope T2 gear will have set bonus, not like Mordor. (coz waiting the raid to get a core set bonus for my main character (warden) was a bit disappointing)

Can we have an improved scaling on Virtues, LI main stats and better crafted relics? Things are outdated....

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Originally Posted by Decrepify

Can we have an improved scaling on Virtues, LI main stats and better crafted relics? Things are outdated....

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You'd think there'd be a check list for stuff that needs doing for a level increase. I'd love to see it if it does exist.


Mac

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Originally Posted by Decrepify

Can we have an improved scaling on Virtues, LI main stats and better crafted relics? Things are outdated....

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This would be nice.

You know what would be nice, having Bullroar open for more than 2 days at a time. Also have it open on the weekends too. Testing during the week, and with no notification to the general player public, sucks. Open it for 4-5 days starting on a Wednesday and run it through Sunday. Imagine how many bugs would get reported and possibly fixed.

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Originally Posted by Hythel45

Gear should be gotten 1 of 2 ways: 3, 6, 12 man instances ( raids and the like ) or crafting. Crafted gear for landscape content and maybe decent enough to run tier 1 instances, anything after that should be as a reward for successful completion of said instance. But never should the gear come from loot boxes.

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This sums it up nicely.

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Originally Posted by Vastin

Don't be sweating the potion values over much. We'll be tweaking down the loot potions - I just jammed them in kinda late as a 1st pass with a ton of other things I was trying to get in for the update, so the numbers were caffeine addled. They should also have a 2m cooldown like the regular potions. :rolleyes:

As for the crafting potions, the itemization progressions behind those haven't been properly updated in too long. I'm doing that now. They should be going way up shortly - they should compare reasonably well with each other in the end.

-Vastin

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Great news, glad to see this getting worked on. Regardless of what other people may say, this is a good thing to get fixed. Certainly you guys are working your tails off trying to make adjustments for much more and I can't wait to see what it yields.

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Originally Posted by Vastin

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

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I was thinking this very thing yesterday when that other thread popped up about the locks.

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Originally Posted by Kaztiel

I was thinking this very thing yesterday when that other thread popped up about the locks.

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So SSG thinks its a problem everyone getting the best gear in one day? Well, they just made it possible as you can buy everything in one day for real money. LOL

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Originally Posted by Hythel45

Gear should be gotten 1 of 2 ways: 3, 6, 12 man instances ( raids and the like ) or crafting. Crafted gear for landscape content and maybe decent enough to run tier 1 instances, anything after that should be as a reward for successful completion of said instance. But never should the gear come from loot boxes.

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I don't understand the "maybe" in this post. Why shouldn't players who don't group on the regular have opportunity to get decent T1-ready gear? I don't care if its crafting, lootboxes, questing, ash/barter, etc., moderate/midtier gear should be obtainable by anyone. Raiders/Groupers can keep the BiS, that's fine. But there's no reason others shouldn't be able to get improved gear.

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

We're making changes to the gear in the boxes for the next Bullroarer. The highest they can have will be 370 incomparable gear. Essences will also come down. The Tier 2 instance gear hasn't been shown yet as well.

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

Black Steel Key will open the new boxes.

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Thank you for this clarification.

Will we still be able to obtain Black Steel Keys from dailies in Mordor, North Mirkwood and featured instances?
(in addition to the new dailies from Iron Hills which give 2x Black Steel Keys)

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Originally Posted by Knight.Arkenstone

Thank you for this clarification - it's appreciated.

Will we still be able to obtain Black Steel Keys from dailies in Mordor, North Mirkwood and featured instances?
I'm assuming that Iron Hills will also have it's own set of dailies also which grant black steel keys?

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The Grey Mountains has two sets and of dailies that unlock after completing “State of the Expedition”

“Reclaiming the Grey” - Run Crafting dungeon quests and dailies (20) Gives a black steel key.

“Fight for the Grey” - Complete Thrumfall, Thikil Gundu and Glimmerdeep (3 instances) Gives another Black Steel key

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Originally Posted by yafga

So SSG thinks its a problem everyone getting the best gear in one day? Well, they just made it possible as you can buy everything in one day for real money. LOL

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If that is your take on what was posted, so be it. It isn't how I am going to interpret it though.

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Originally Posted by PewPew9700

I don't understand the "maybe" in this post. Why shouldn't players who don't group on the regular have opportunity to get decent T1-ready gear? I don't care if its crafting, lootboxes, questing, ash/barter, etc., moderate/midtier gear should be obtainable by anyone. Raiders/Groupers can keep the BiS, that's fine. But there's no reason others shouldn't be able to get improved gear.

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We had Lootboxes drop rate at double digit chances in Mordor. Can we assume a similar drop rate in the new area? Will key dailies be gated behind area completion and out of the grasp from the usual suspects? I'm guessing yes.

So we have Cyan gear available on BR for mote (ash) barter. Dungeons are T1 only atm and seem to just drop purple gear (50 motes a piece), perhaps the odd Black book quest may award a Cyan or two? Instances have daily locks. So if you want to grind a bit more ash (mote) what are the options? Well, maybe CoS and Resources instances from Udun but who knows if that's the right kind of mote now. So with daily locks a finite amount notwithstanding the RNG.

Hmmm seems like a lot of effort, getting effective groups, doing the 6 man then dropping 3 to do the 3 mans leaving those guys with a less than optimum balance. Then drop another for the resource instance run. A good few hours for all that, no room for alts in this plan.


There must be an easier way? Yes ofc open up a few of those boxes that have filled your pack. 120 to 1200 ash for Gorgoroth boxes, is it the same with these new ones? Four boxes for a cyan's worth of motes, maybe just two with luck. Why not just open up a few more to save the hassle of getting groups together or waiting around for friends to log on, just to find they are locked for the day now. Go on buy another few keys, your supporting the fine work that SSG are doing after all. We can tell ourselves that, sure. You get some new essence, a cosmetic, maybe a nice goat to ride, a Cyan drop perhaps. That'll save you a few motes from your steadily growing at stack of motes and all of a suddenly you noticed you've been short changed and you are at the Ash/Mote cap. So you barter some motes and get some more gear and your on to a winner with this lark.

SSG tell us the locks are in place because the dungeon drops are too good to have them farmed all day. Yet those who would farm it all day can use keys too, so if they are stymied maybe they resort to opening the boxes too. Then you have gear progression mostly via daily key quests and store key purchases, LP or bought LP. Is this the way of it now? We use to do content; raids, quests and crafting for the gear to run the content we were wanting to do. Now we can use the store to avoid playing much of the content. Yeah we're real winners!


Mac

Dear Developers,

I would much appreciate adding a limitation to the frequency use of /say chat.
The Arkenstone PvMP community frequently runs into extreme lag issues on both sides caused by rank 0 creeps spamming the say chat.
Since the other chats are limited on how frequently one can post in a chat, I imagine the implementation of waiting a few seconds for the next chat entry in say chat would be relatively easy.

Sincerely,

Shanehere

Please fix awkward dual-wield champion animation (in Red line) which was introduced after champion changes in the recent update. I believe there are a lot of complaints about this already.

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Originally Posted by miriadel

eriador new map

https://i.imgur.com/UWrtzJT.jpg

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While I still really dislike this new map style compared to the older paintbrush style, this one is far better than the Rhovanion one added last time.

However, it has a couple major geographical errors that need correcting:

1. The Rivendell graphic is much too far west and should be nestled right up against the mountains (which are barely even visible in the middle of the map for some reason).
2. The Eregion label is in the wrong spot. It should be NW of the Gates of Moria graphic (since that location is in the SE corner of the zone). In the game world, Eregion is directly north of Enedwaith, which is directly north of Dunland. Here it looks like you might get to Enedwaith directly from the Lone-lands, which aren't anywhere near each other because of the combination of misplaced names and biome art styles.

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Originally Posted by Vastin

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

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Vastin , most of us love you and most of your work ,
you've proven many times over since you came back to the game that you care what players say so i'll give you the benefit of doubt,
meaning you've simply misjudged this.
Your whole post is extremely misleading , with several exaggerations , or let's just say , you might have picked a few real events of the outmost extremes and tried to present them as the general rule ^^
Fact remains , that if there were no lootboxes in the game , you would have NEVER applied locks on 3man and 6man.
I am sorry , but the rest is simply excuses.

Lotro historically NEVER did that and the game was just FINE.
The only time non-raid instances had locks were Carn Dum , Uru and old unified Fornost.
But the purpose of that was Checkpoints , because those instances were far too big to complete on 1 go for many players.
It had very little to do with loot , catchup mechanic or community reasons.

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Originally Posted by chrisoxmo

Obviously the best reason for SSG is that it helps limit the ash anyone can get daily, outside of lootboxes, making those lootboxes even more attracting for the players and increase their sales. You don't care if the people can gear fully on day 1 with lootboxes, but you care if they do it with farming.

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This explains it perfectly. Very well said , /bow...
I wonder , doesn't skipping gearing through lootboxes hurt the grouping ''community'' ??????????????
Doesn't that hurt the duration of your instance content???????

At least in Mordor , we had time to do the instances at our own pace before you applied the locks , by the time you did , the gear was inferior to latest content and the only purpose of running our only instance ( CoS ) was SoE , marks and ASH , not the gear itself.

This will go really badly if you launch U23 with locks , not just for us players , but for you as well as a company.
Frustrated players means less income and less logins.
But you know that already.

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Originally Posted by Seodric

Exactly!

i will then propose a limit to how many keys you can purchase in store in one day ... to let's say, max 5 keys per day?

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That was EPIC but you do owe me a coffee , i just spilled one xDDD
Think some of it came out of my nose too , but yeah , too much information...
I can imagine the store guy sweating over this....

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

We're making changes to the gear in the boxes for the next Bullroarer. The highest they can have will be 370 incomparable gear. Essences will also come down. The Tier 2 instance gear hasn't been shown yet as well.

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Interesting....
Could you please clarify what that means exactly ?
Boxes = lootboxes , ash(motes) gear boxes or both ???????
If it's both then this is a great change.
Assuming t2 will drop teal 375 gear and rep vendor gear remains 375 that is...
I'd also suggest boosting critical crafted gear to teal quality , otherwise it will mostly be pointless to craft and there won't be any serious market for it.

I am honestly hoping for the best here, i'll be checking next build for sure.
If lootbox gear is lesser ( even slightly ) comparing to t2 instance gear , kindred teal rep gear and crit crafted gear , i see no issues with it : )

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The Misty Mountain stable-masters have decided to rent sturdy goat mounts instead of horses for travel in those mountains.

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YES. Excellent immersion update! I hope Grey Mt and Erebor rentals follow this trend as well.

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Originally Posted by Shanehere

Dear Developers,

I would much appreciate adding a limitation to the frequency use of /say chat.
The Arkenstone PvMP community frequently runs into extreme lag issues on both sides caused by rank 0 creeps spamming the say chat.
Since the other chats are limited on how frequently one can post in a chat, I imagine the implementation of waiting a few seconds for the next chat entry in say chat would be relatively easy.

Sincerely,

Shanehere

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This causes all kinds of issues for bands with lyrics, at one event we had to have a +name on hand to keep unlocking folks. You can turn off /say in your chat panels. Or if they could implement a moors-only delay that could be good too, but not for everyone, because then we're back to losing a very immersive element again.

I'm really loving the artwork and worldbuilding in this update! Check out this cozy scholar's crafting area in Erebor, with comfy cushions you can actually sit on!

https://i.imgur.com/C2jW0Jk.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/kqYkHde.jpg



And take a close look at the amazing detail on this pillow from Nori's house:

https://i.imgur.com/CxvYu3q.jpg

Devs, this needs to be a tailor cosmetic recipe! :D



I was also blown away by the art in the (non-crafting) scholar's house in Erebor. There's too much awesome stuff to post screenshots of all of it, but here's a shot of a really cool Rosetta Stone-like tablet. I'm currently working on translating all the runes! (Spoiler: it seems to contain a selection from a familiar poem....)

https://i.imgur.com/V70MXqp.jpg



Normally the worldbuilding is stellar, and normally I don't get excited enough to post about it on the forums. But I think the artists and worldbuilders have really outdone themselves with this update! :)

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Originally Posted by Velkeirien

Normally the worldbuilding is stellar, and normally I don't get excited enough to post about it on the forums. But I think the artists and worldbuilders have really outdone themselves with this update! :)

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I agree. Scenery from Bree, Rivendell and from north downs actually got me to play this game. And that was 10 years ago.

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Originally Posted by MAWorking

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Originally Posted by Vastin

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

-Vastin

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I get it, I agree.
I ran COS over and over and over again. It was a serious cash cow.

I am fine with raid locks, but a possible solution could be: All drops are bind to character. (no mat drops, no unique item drops)

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I find myself not agreeing with basically anything You write. Neither those many others in this thread it seems. However I respect Your right to voice Your opinions and will defend that right. That is important. Everyone should be allowed to be heard.

My own opnions: No more bind stuff. I feel limited and strangled as it is with caps, locks, bind to account etc. If we can't even share within group or even within our own accounts that does not promote helping and/or sharing anything. Instead let's be able to share and help more, not less.

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Originally Posted by SSG_RedPanda

We're making changes to the gear in the boxes for the next Bullroarer. The highest they can have will be 370 incomparable gear. Essences will also come down. The Tier 2 instance gear hasn't been shown yet as well.

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Thank you for your direct reply. I never thought I'd get one from a blue name tbh lol. Anyways, I'll stop whining untill I see the new BR build. Still, I don't support this aggressive lootbox system that has become the norm since mordor expansion. Boxes should never even be in the game. Or at least very limited.