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The most dedicated PVPers are not the people sitting at GG. The game shouldn't be balanced around 1v1s at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by ConsistentRager
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Originally Posted by quicksilver3
So you want to punish defilers, Warleaders, Rks, minis, bears, lms? Because why?
Did I say the game should be balanced around 1v1s? No i did not. What i ment by that is that people who spend all their time at the 1v1 circle know the class in and out unlike people who has shuffled their way to rank 15. In my opinion the game should be balanced around 6v6 action.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate00
Delete heal tagging all together. it will not happen this beta because that is not the scope of it but it is a terrible system which leads 1/3 of the population to roll defiler and sit at the back line and do no healing and just heal passers by at full health.
#Nerf Defiler Buff warleader
The truth is that you cannot balance around 1vs1. This is an MMORPG and not a PvP focused game like a MOBA etc. You'd have to strip every class of their uniqueness and make them boring. Balancing around 6vs6 is much more realistic.
Because the healing system had been implemented without any restrictions/requirements whatsoever. It has been explained countless times why it's bad over the past decade.Quote:
So you want to punish defilers, Warleaders, Rks, minis, bears, lms? Because why?
- It's unfair because you can leech points off people without doing anything significant
- One heal-over-time is enough and it doesn't even have to be effective healing. You can heal someone at full health and it still counts as a valid contribution
- No distance limit
- Buggy in-combat states
- It doesn't seem to reset once the person you healed is out of combat
- It promotes playstyles that hurt the quality of PvP, effecively killing all small group/solo action. Imagine you're a solo player who is actively roaming the map seeking fair fights and you have to share your hard earned points with 10 others who did nothing to help you get those points other than put one HoT on you 10 minutes before as you passed them.
- Because it's so effective to farm points as a healer, there are now ~3 healers for every DPS player in the Moors. Due to this abundance of healers people don't die as frequently as they used to and it creates melting points.
- Said melting points lead to huge zergs and ultimately -> lag. Enhanced by the fact that people have 4 rows of buffs and debuffs on their character portraits because they survive for so long and every time you try to target them the whole server seems to almost crash
At the end of the day it creates more problems than it solves and reverting it is easier than wasting time trying to fix it, because it's quite complex. They copy pasted it from PvE, because they implemented shared XP on landscape at the same time with Update 8. While it makes sense for PvE (becaue let's be honest, no one wants to compete for mob tags on landscape in PvE and then having to wait for the respawn if you don't get the tag), it never made sense for PvP in my opinion. It was a bad design decision that really sucked the soul out of PvMP turning it into an Infamy Farming Simulator. Ranks and titles became meaningless. Every day is just a huge mass of people shuffling back and forth between two safe points (GV - TR backdoor or Gram - Lug backdoor). That's it, no other action.
PLEASE get rid of it
You made a lot of great points, but it was implemented in pvp after years of requests from solo healers on both sides not getting points because they were ungrouped, though standing clustered with other players of the same faction. And the reason they were doing this was because Turbine nerfed point distribution for raids.Quote:
Originally Posted by Daenirion
It's really encouraging to see people talking about what really matters though. Its the underpinning mechanics of the moors that are our biggest issues. Heal tagging, Castle back doors, auto flips things of this nature are far more important to the overall health of the community and game mode. I hope these things will be addressed but I have to imagine SSG might be a little bemused as we bang on about them while their shiny new pvp gear that has been all the talk since 28.2 awaits.
Hello Fantus and welcome back!
Your work on PvMP changes and balancing is greatly appreciated and anticipated by a lot of players. Really liking the looks of the returning audacity gear but I'll wait until the first BR goes live before making any comments or judging the quality of changes.
Side note to everyone: we have a discord going specifically for Bullroarer testing with voice rooms for all peeps in BR and channels where we post screenshots that you can share with your friends and kinnies of latest BR builds. We also post a link direct to the latest forums and patch notes for BR as well to give feedback.
discord.gg/72DaJhSHXM
Link above if you'd like to hop in and say hi!
I understand why that request was made, but healers are designed to be played in a group in my opinion. It is such a small issue that could've been fixed by the players. Grouping up with a DPS player isn't too much to ask in an MMORPG. Also, damaging the player once is enough, then they can just resume healing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowlock
"But that's annoying, what if I just want to keep healing". Let's be honest, anyone who has played during the new system knows that people don't actually heal you, even now. They put the mandatory HoT on you to make sure that they don't miss a single potential kill in their vicinity and then keep dealing damage anyway. That's the reality.
Nothing has changed for the better. Turbine forced a broken system upon the entire community at the behest of a small minority that could have fixed their own problem with a little bit of effort
its a broken mechanic. you ever see the defiler bots sitting in grams or rez circles, spam healing creeps. they end up getting r10 in less then 2 weeks. w/o doing a thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate00
if a defiler in a raid heals me and i dont relog to reset the heal tag. ill end up getting 30pts for a kill i would have gotten 300 for.
This is true, the idea in concept is good, you want to reward healers for being involved in a fight, but the scaling and implementation makes it a highly abused mechanic. I can't tell you how many times I had someone toss me a heal I didn't need and funnel off a good chunk of renown for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by quicksilver3
Do you have some proof of these solo healers making requests for years?Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowlock
Am I right, that Bullroar now is open for the PvMP Test?
First it was announced this week Wednesday, than shifted to next week, now it's again this week?
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Originally Posted by quicksilver3
Its a broken mechanic because who says it is? Again you want to punish 7 classes because you dont want heals in the moors. Healers shouldnt be forced to group up and play the game the way the others think they should.
almost everyone says it it. it literally broken. if you can heal someone and get points from a heal tag you did 10min ago thats broke. i doubt they could do an easy fix for it. so best just to remove it all together.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate00
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Originally Posted by quicksilver3
you mean the vocal minority? i'm sure they do say that, but you still cant justify punishing 7 classes cause you dont like to be healed.
You're right, Kate. It's perfectly acceptable that some r0 defiler afk in Grams tosses Fertile Slime on me and takes half my infamy gain for the night after I put in all the work and he just sits there. Do you have any other great PvMP wisdom to impart so we can just finish killing this product?Quote:
Originally Posted by Kate00
https://i.imgur.com/X3EpdvO.png
@Fants
- Sneak in GV are FIXED ? :D
They don't sneak in GV before your patch-notes.
Changes aren't live are they? Also, you should get a little in game break for cheating. Seems like there's some evidence floating around.Quote:
Originally Posted by venyos
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Originally Posted by Snowlock
Where I was cheating ?
Not you lol I meant the warg sorry.Quote:
Originally Posted by venyos
Something not thought about often is the quest that is available for PVMP, particularly on the monster's side. I strongly think the repeatable ones need their cold downs reduced to 2 hours or 1 hour. Either that or their infamy reward needs to be increased by at least 100% to make them worthwhile.
At the very least also, the Infamy boost from the store should be able to affect infamy gain from turning in the quest. I counted 72 total creep quests in Ettenmoors. With only a few giving 100 Infamy and most giving 60 to 80 inf (with some only giving 40) and 6 in Gramsfoot that don't give Infamy at all. that's 66 right there, and estimating if someone were to do most of them, they would only be getting around maybe 4,000 (estimation) to barely 5,000. These numbers can be easily reached by killing Freep raids for under an hour and spending around 5+ hours grinding away doing the quest is getting stale. If infamy boosters were to affect the quest, that would give us around 8,000 per day from the quest, which is a lot better. Would be even more so if the quest cooldowns were reduced to 1 to 2 hours. This would be especially helpful on slow days.
Also, NPCs on Both sides need to be tweaked, 2-3 creeps shouldn't be able to take a keep, and neither should 2-3 freeps be able to also.
With the current state of the Moors after the Freeps received their new shimy weapons and the creeps received just nothing, can you at least make the squirrel near the bird alive so I can kill it, and thank you. At least we would get something.
can we not derail the 1st thread in ages where someone at ssg cares about pvmp enough to replay in chat?
There's an iron curtain around the base, if you can tell me how they're getting in I can fix it.Quote:
Originally Posted by venyos
Results from the poll I conducted (had around 250 responses, link: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...-your-help!)):
1. MACRO CLASS BALANCE: 27%
2. MAP DESIGN 22%
3. MICRO CLASS BALANCE 22%
4. GEAR 18%
5. POINTS 6%
6. ETC. 4%
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MY preferred order of priority:
0. LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG
Lag is obviously the priority- - no point improving the game if you can't play it
1. MAP DESIGN
The current map construction (along with details surrounding it) isn't conducive to fun, objective based PvP.
2. GEAR/POINTS
I couldn't decide with this one, as I feel the former encourages bad PvP and the latter has a significant impact on PvP numbers/balance feasibility.
3. MACRO CLASS BALANCE
I'm an almost exclusively solo player, but even I believe Raid, Fellowship, and small group action is more important to examine before we talk about details for class design.
4. MICRO CLASS BALANCE
Solo action is important, and while perfect 1v1 balance is completely unrealistic (and even undesirable), there are a lot of unreasonably annoying issues, some of which are big enough to cause issues in Macro balance.
I'll go over each point and put my thoughts on each topic.
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0. LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG LAG
I mean, what is there to say. It's inconsistent, unpredictable, seems to affect some classes worse than others, and discourages people playing the game. It's also exacerbated by how zerging is rewarded.
1. MAP DESIGN
There have been numerous quality arguments given already for EC/OC reversion, removal of Backdoors (or adjustments), buffing of NPCs, better objective motivation, etc., but I'll add one special focus:
Maps
Maps are actually something that I don't think get brought up enough. They have a MASSIVE impact on PvMP: they encourage Creep PvE, Creep Zerg mentality, and discourage Freeps from solo/small grouping/PvEing. Roll onto Evernight server, and a callout in OOC will often get met by 10-15 creeps, sometimes more, instantly mapping in for the free points. Start by granting Freeps 3-4 maps, disable mounts, and consider removing a few Creep maps while you're at it. The traversal of terrain/travel time is part of combat strategy. Lack of Freep maps also means Freeps are more likely to get "stuck" in a shuffle /camp.
2. POINTS
Without rehashing what's already been hammered before, I really can't emphasize enough how the current point system encourages horrific PvMP. Healtagging is unengaging and infuriating to play into for either side (encourages heal stacking and random taggers, which means nothing dies!). RvR gives disproportionately high point reward, while simultaneously being the least challenging/engaging way to play the game.
2. GEAR
I've been one of the biggest proponents of PvP gear because I personally saw a large number of my friends give up on the endless/RNG/P2W PvE grind, and leave PvP. There's a lot of people who just want to PvP, and when you require the Freep PvP population to commit HUNDREDS of hours to build a good endgame PvP build, you're going to lose a lot of players. "You don't need the BiS gear to PvP!" Yeah? Try telling that to competitive sort of people (who also, coincidentally, are usually the ones PvMPing!)- if I purposefully gimp myself, I can PvP more and PvE less is not something competitive people want to hear. It's frustrating and demotivating (if I can only compete at the top level by grinding PvE or spending a lot of money, then screw this game).
In addition to thinning Freepside numbers (that dreaded empty Moors for weeks and months post-update), PvE gear is just simply impossible to balance around. Top Tier raid armor is hilariously strong in comparison to what the casual PvPer wears. This leads to huge variances in combat experiences, and makes for a frustrating experience for Creeps (and Freeps) who can feel OP 1 second, and then feel trash-tier a moment next without hardly factoring their opponent's skill, just their gear!
As others have said, I'm very hesitant and concerned about the additional LI grind that may be on the table for PvPers. Heck, I'd be open to removing LIs if that's something you could feasibly balance around in PvP (I doubt it). It would be a shame to come so far with PvP gear only for a brutal and expensive LI grind to gatekeep people just the same.
I hope in the future mandated PvP armor becomes something that's possible.
3. MACRO CLASS BALANCE
Hard to argue that there isn't something wrong with Macro balance right now. A list would be appropriate (off the top of my head, others can add):
- Healing too strong, damage too high.
Both sides have access to easy high levels of healing (Creepside specifically with Defilers- WLs are not strong). I'm all for toning damage down, I'm all for toning healing down, but realistically it needs to happen at the same time (I suggest a global -inc heal debuff on Freeps when they enter the Moors), otherwise there's going to be problems. As it is with Defiler HoTs and Freep Healing/Defensive CDs, raw burst is practically the only way groups can secure kills in RvR.
- Freeps have access to ridiculous levels of utility, Creeps have nothing but CC.
Creep Buff/Debuff options are hilariously garbage when compared to Freep utility, including Attack Duration debuffs/buffs, Raw damage debuff/buffs, defensive CDs, rezzes (outside of WL rez which en masse is arguably too effective), slows, sprints, strong AoE damage (Creeps have almost literally zero AoE options), and -heal debuffs/buffs. Creeps have access to some strong CC with WL Shieldbash and Spider, but Freeps also have solid CC tools available. Oh, and the few debuffs that Creeps do have (Fleas, Dust, Spider debuffs, Disarm, Silences) are instantly removed OR resisted with Muster Courage/the glut of purge skills that Freeps now have. Creeps need better scaled and simply more utility.
- Creeps recently have been handed classes that do too much for too little effort.
FREEPS HAVE GREATLY BENEFITED FROM THIS TOO, however I don't know of anything more shamefully brain dead than the state of Defiler healing difficulty and efficacy (Defiler is without a doubt the easiest healer in all of LOTRO play, and it's by a lot), and for far, far too long, BA using a CHANNEL skill was the most DPS you could do on Creepside. Look, I get this game isn't exactly the pinnacle of competitive integrity, but there has to be a skill floor with Creep (and Freep) balancing, otherwise you run into the problem where an imbalance is too easily exploited, because everyone can do it. If a class was only OP in the hands of an elite, it wouldn't be a problem, it's when EVERYONE can do it with no knowledge or effort whatsoever, that there's a problem. Wargs, Burgs, Hunters, Champs, and Bears are other Freep classes that have fallen into/currently fall into the "why is this class so easy" in the last few years.
4. MICRO CLASS BALANCE
This one will be a bit rambling with a lot of details, but most of these are just random thoughts I've had about different classes- others will have qualified opinions on it. Take these as more sparks for a more in-depth discussion (but not necessarily a huge priority right now).
Beorning: This class's healing potential, endless sprinting, and worthless wrath system (perma-wrath lol) makes it annoying to play against.
Burglar: Burglar's CDs are a complete joke and have been for ages. Knives Out is essential invulnerability, they have a competent self heal with TnG+Pot, can HIPS, and then do it all over again. This along with the numerous micro buffs (AoE crit chains, DES now immediate, Provoke inc damage buff). Next to their CD reset, Provoke mez is unquestionably the most obnoxious aspect of Burglar, as it's essentially a low CD RANGED mez with moderate damage with a chance for a truly nasty grace period. Remove Ready and Able, and take a look at Provoke!
Captain: Probably need to take a look at this class's skill range as well as it's self-healing. The amount of HPS a Captain can put out in a 1v1 (in red line) is unparalleled by any other Freep class. Oh, and SERIOUSLY consider nerfing the crud out of Muster Courage.
Champion: Oh boy, the Champ. Why does a melee brawl/DPS class have Renewing strikes, Fight On (with the ability to reset), a morale pot, AND Bracing Attack (all of these being affected by inc healing, btw!). Oh, and permanent sprint, and the delightful Champion's Duel skill (which may be one of the most infuriating 1v1 skills in the game). Please address Champion healing (which is almost completely meaningless in PvE, anyway), perma-sprint, and take a look at Duel.
Guardian: Don't really know where Guardians are balance wise right now, but I can tell you a class with in-combat 200% sprint, a full heal, and a low CD Thrill of Danger self heal probably deserves looking into. Oh, and Catch a Breath heals for a decent amount, too (what is it with LOTRO giving classes access to so many self-heals?)!
Hunter: No idea where Hunters are rotationally, but with Press Onward and Blood Arrow, we once again have a class that has access to far too much self-healing. Oh, and Quick Shot slow (stacks btw, so is essentially impossible to pot/brand) needs to be looked at. Yellow Hunter as a whole is an abomination (being chain trapped/stunned by someone button mashing isn't fun).
Loremaster: Ancient Craft has historically been a problem with Creep mitigations (is far too effective than it should be), and Water-Lore is often problematic 1v1. The auto-crit Lightning storm with Pet-Crit was a pretty obnoxious mechanic back in the day- is that still a thing?
Minstrel: No idea where this class is balance wise, but I do know they have extremely potent self-heals. I'm fine with it if it's balanced out elsewhere. Would take a look at Flop, though- I hear its CD is remarkably low (very strong in small group/6v6 fights).
Runekeeper: This class seems to have grown easier rotationally, and doesn't rely even on big finishers to do damage anymore. Armor of Elements may have the official medal for worst skill on Freepside, with it's unavoidable chain-mezzing delight. Add to that Concession and Rebuttal (inc damage reduction that puts RK into tank level survivability), Self-Motivation (the cooldown reduces by 1s every six months, I swear), and everyone's favorite fulgurite stone, and you have an annoying little expansion class.
Warden: This class was a balance joke for so long. Right now it's not particularly strong (their self-heals aren't quite what they used to be), so let's hope the ridiculous amount of survivability doesn't increase.
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Black-Arrow A cool class with a few too many worthless skills. The only consistent creep -inc heal debuff and inherent benefit of ranged classes means this guy is a staple in Zerg vs Zerg action.
Defiler: Arguably the easiest class on Freep/Creep to play, the worst offender when it comes to Zerg/heal tag mentality, and a class that has no stance/traitline to sacrifice for damage/healing efficacy. If you run into a Defiler solo, you better hope you can heal for a lot or run away, because you're not going to beat one with a brain solo (the argument that you shouldn't be able to solo Creep healers is viable except... a Creep healing class shouldn't be able to also have a full arsenal of full-strength DPS skills!). The class desperately needs a difficulty increase, a limit of how many HoTs can stack on a single target, debuffs that aren't insta-removable (one challenging aspect of Defiler that almost never stands out because the debuffs get insta-removed!), and a damage/healing stance (like WL).
Reavers: The red-headed step child of creepside. Strong self-healing, unless it gets kited, but it has Resilience for that, just hope it actually works properly. Oh, and pray Impale crits. With Pot, Wrath, and ATO, probably too much self-healing for this class, and absolutely 0 utility- the AoE is a complete joke, and the debuffs are meaningless and removable. This class gets absolutely rolled in RvR as it can never reach anything, and gets AoEd down like the fodder that it is. I personally feel Reaver needs better utility and rotational quality separate from Impale- I think giving it significant AoE would be a really fun direction for the class.
Spider: Spiders are often the underrated "most OP Creep in the Moors" when Creeps get buffed because of their high defensives, strong utility/CC (at least in comparison to other Creep classes) and solid damage. I'd keep an eye on this class if Creeps get any serious love.
Warg: It's gotten better in the last 2 years, but this class still relies on Claws to do too high of a percentage of its damage. Its rotation when min-maxed is insanely complex, but the payoff isn't as big as it should be. In addition, Disappear/Sprint are abused as escape tactics and not defensive CDs- making Sprint 50% in combat would help, as would double Disappear CD if an offensive skill isn't used within the 10s grace period. Warg also needs better utility apart from Puddle (Shadow Fangs/Fleas, Snap!, Rabid Bite all either haven't scaled well or are worthless), I'd start by giving them a short duration -25% inc heal debuff (Creeps need more of these available).
Warleader: Underpowered and rather dull to play. Only thing worth mentioning is that AoE WL rez is another item that encourages the oh-so unpleasant zerg vs. zerg.
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ETC.
Some last few points that I think are pretty important.
- On Buff/Population buff.
Please rework or remove this. Granting all of Freepside a free Tome of Defense hardly (if ever) encourages people to swap sides- it just spits in the eye of combat integrity for RvrR all the way down to soloers. Either remove it entirely or rework it to reward more infamy for the weaker side. There has to be a better way to address numbers imbalance, and please don't punish Creeps for afk Freaver spys!
- Session Play
Constrictions has already gone over this elsewhere, but I do believe Ranger/Troll should be significantly stronger than they are, to the point to where they can feasibly swing fights. Not only would it be fun to have these guys back in, but it'd be a safety catch to prevent action from being every completely one-sided (well, almost).
- Creepside Accessibility
Not really something I will delve into deeply, but the F2P (sort of) aspect of Creepside, difficulty to grind for Freep gear, and the VIP gate for Freeps have meant creeps have a tendency to have a numbers advantage. Now I know some have argued for "lore" and such, I think that's just lazy balancing. I think addressing the map/gear issues will help deal with this.
- Comms price
Would be nice if the commendations ceiling was raised again, and some of the prices for Creepside amenities were lowered. If you're not a raider/quester, chances are you'll at some point run out of comms for Delving pots, Fury pots, morale pots, etc.- all of which are essential for Creepside.
- Creep stats/corruptions
Creep base stats (crit/finesse, bpe, resist, etc) have been in disarray for ages- usually being hilariously weak (BPE/Resist were crazy strong for a brief period not long ago). More uniformity with this ALONG with a significant nerf to corruptions and a significant buff to base stats would be my preference. As it is there is a vast variance in Creep builds in the Moors, all of which have gaping holes. I would prefer corruptions to be small flavors/boosts to an already robust base set of stats to increase uniformity in PvP experience (same reason why you wouldn't want 5 essence slots in your PvP gear).
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All of this is far from exhaustive, but I'm exhausted (ha) and just wanted to spew some thoughts out while I have the time. WTB feedback/discussion/arguments on any of my points above.
Game's been around for a long long long long time... people have long since discovered the way to clip through those invisi-walls. gonna need to be something more drastic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fants_SSG
I'm impressed. GL.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spilo