Welcome back to the Ettenmoors!

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Originally Posted by SSG_Orion

Nothing planned right now. I'm not a fan of the scaling as it is but there are no cycles to dedicate to a change at the moment.

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First off holy cow your communication on this thread is excellent Orion. I admit I haven't been paying much attention but seeing the dev tracker with all your posts is great.

On the issue of scaling, I do think the current scaling system is not working well but I would argue it should be something we devote some time to for two simple reasons:

1) If scaling worked well then you could make PvMP level agnostic, this means more players would engage without having to grind to level cap, it also means we could offer PvMP to legendary server players who are missing out on the part of the game with the biggest 'replayability' factor.

2) If scaling works right, then presumably we would not have to rebalance the moors every time level cap increases, which would make development for you guys much less work.

I've said this in other threads, and I know I am oversimplifying, but if freepside moors was limited to PvMP gear and weapons only (including no LIs), trait points and virtues were capped at a certain level, and all players entered would be the same level with properly scaling stats (should be doable if everyone's gear is PvP only) then you'd have a much more balanced Moors with the option to include wayyy more players from the community.

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Originally Posted by Strider5548

I've said this in other threads, and I know I am oversimplifying, but if freepside moors was limited to PvMP gear and weapons only (including no LIs), trait points and virtues were capped at a certain level, and all players entered would be the same level with properly scaling stats (should be doable if everyone's gear is PvP only) then you'd have a much more balanced Moors with the option to include wayyy more players from the community.

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I agree with you, but some people including me already pointed that out and we didn't get any response.

Probably he is not allowed to touch Freeps gear for some reason.

Maybe producers want Freeps to take advantage of LIs and PvE gear in PvMP areas. After all they are still the VIPs and Creeps are the F2P walking targets.

I believe they want to keep it that way so VIPs can enjoy themselves with F2P creep players as dummies.

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Originally Posted by Ameranth

Perhaps on your server that's true. On mine they're something people sigh about when they happen just after flipping a keep, but wish for when they need to turn in a quest. Not all servers are the same, making rules to fit just one will harm PVP on the others.

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I mainly pvp on Laurelin and even we can get enough guys together to flip any keep at most times.
If you really have a population so low that you can't even get a group to flip keeps then idk what to say. It certainly doesn't represent the larger PvMP community as a whole though.

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Originally Posted by Melank

I agree with you, but some people including me already pointed that out and we didn't get any response.

Probably he is not allowed to touch Freeps gear for some reason.

Maybe producers want Freeps to take advantage of LIs and PvE gear in PvMP areas. After all they are still the VIPs and Creeps are the F2P walking targets.

I believe they want to keep it that way so VIPs can enjoy themselves with F2P creep players as dummies.

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No intent to remove LIs from MP right now.

Just a couple of points i haven't seen raised yet in theses threads but of some importance.

1) lot of talk about freep vs creep imbalance however hardly a peep about the playes vs npcs imbalance. The freeps with their higher dps/cc demolish npc's enabling them to quickly flip points like keeps , outposts and delving bosses. I was in a freep raid that demolished Gary in less than 10 seconds. Creeps on the other hand struggle with npc's on the landscape because of their inferior dps/cc and AoE skills. This means questing for noob creeps is infinitely more dangerous , it means them being often caught struggling to get some buffs from the landscape so they can at least get some points for playing. My tribe plays twice a week , every time we spend the first hour not pvp'ing but trying to get some infamy buff so we are not stuck with 20% when we log into the blue maps.... Freep renown gain seems always 5+ times greater than their creep counter parts. The other point is capped r15 creeps don't get infamy so have little inclination to spend time helping the lower ranks get something for their play time. These are things which should be addressed in future changes.

2) The LI update caused a range imbalance in the moors, freeps now out range creeps. What does this mean in an rvr fight not much however they can kill delving bosses ie gary or the drake from above easier quickly with little risk to themselves.
More importantly they out range the creep npc oneshots. The worse aspect of this is they can kill creeps who spawn after death in rez circles quickly before they even have a chance to finish spawning. As a minimum the NPC creeps should have the same if not greated range than the freeps have with their LI tracer buffs.

Enough said for now, thanks for your time and interest in these comments Orion. :cool:

So the first time in 13 years I went to a test server.
first, I tested like I normally play, run around do some quests.
Went as defiler, because my wife plays mainly healers and she loves healing classes.so fresh copy of live server defiler and first impression was that it felt weaker and it was weaker. against NPC-s. so no worries, yet.
next, I went to the testing area :D got ganked by a couple of champions :D I mean cmon, seriously, like GTR as soon u map in someone is killing you. Anyway, what can u expect from a chimp player, I never liked the class and never will? although he was a pretty nice champion main back in the older days, may his soul rest in peace.
So back to feedback. U No Like Our Money, I unsubscribed and soon my wife will also. seems like our money is not good for SSG. so SSG has about 1-3 months to fix this.
1. Audacity. Current state is a mess. I don't understand the need for it, all that audacity provides can be tied to rank. I tolerate it but I don't have so much time for grinding anymore. most servers are empty most of the time. so the grind is even longer.

2. Heal tagging. I remember when there were no healers at all. And that was the ####ier situation than some people get some extra credit for healtagging, at least in a fight situation healer is doing what it is supposed to do. The ideal would be if the healer gets credit if the job is done well. for actual healing, I mean if the target was really healed. The current situation will be like all healers try to DPS AF. and that poor soul who dies will cry and ask why no heal, you know why :D

3. tinctures. I don't understand audacity but this I see, kinda p2w. I don't buy this at all, I don't buy fall immunity, I don't buy store buffs, I don't buy store pots.
3.1. things I would shell out money, currently I paid for VIP just for mailbox access everywhere. I would pay for United OOC Freep and Creep OOC in one. I would pay for Shared storage and transfer stuff to my own freep. I would pay for access to anywhere lore and lvl appropriate area. (as LVL 50 Warg to Angmar) for example.

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Originally Posted by JonXu

1. Audacity. Current state is a mess. I don't understand the need for it, all that audacity provides can be tied to rank. I tolerate it but I don't have so much time for grinding anymore. most servers are empty most of the time. so the grind is even longer.

2. Heal tagging. I remember when there were no healers at all. And that was the ####ier situation than some people get some extra credit for healtagging, at least in a fight situation healer is doing what it is supposed to do. The ideal would be if the healer gets credit if the job is done well. for actual healing, I mean if the target was really healed. The current situation will be like all healers try to DPS AF. and that poor soul who dies will cry and ask why no heal, you know why :D

3. tinctures. I don't understand audacity but this I see, kinda p2w. I don't buy this at all, I don't buy fall immunity, I don't buy store buffs, I don't buy store pots.
3.1. things I would shell out money, currently I paid for VIP just for mailbox access everywhere. I would pay for United OOC Freep and Creep OOC in one. I would pay for Shared storage and transfer stuff to my own freep. I would pay for access to anywhere lore and lvl appropriate area. (as LVL 50 Warg to Angmar) for example.

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1. Audacity is being changed again for the next bullroarer parse, the feedback has been strong and I think Orion already knew it was too high to begin with
2. Tinctures can be bought for commendations, so consider it among the various buffs you buy anyway, I don't think buying it with MC is all that necessary unless you really have some spare coins. 1 hour of a +5 audacity boost isn't entirely game changing and the cost isn't really worth it unless you're a complete paypig. Still won't save you from being clapped by a player who knows what they're doing though.
Yes, the commendation cost to upgrade audacity will be high, but in the long run you'll be looking for things to spend those commendations on, tinctures is valid to be put into the arsenal of pvp consumables I think.

3. While I personally would revel in the unbridled chaos that a unified creep+freep chat channel would bring, I don't think that'll ever happen.
There are various gameplay reasons why creeps won't ever be allowed out the moors. Though we can still pray and hope for the possibility of server events for such a thing (think to the creeps out of Eregion/forochel events that the Russian servers did many years ago), but that's not on the cards right now.

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Originally Posted by Askelin

3. While I personally would revel in the unbridled chaos that a unified creep+freep chat channel would bring, I don't think that'll ever happen.

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It would be a good addition though. Sure, on certain servers it would be a troll fest, but people can use /ignore or just leave the channel entirely. On other servers, the majority of players would be using it to say 'good fight', or 'two of our group dropped, can someone alt to keep the fight even?'. Both are things that we already do using chat alts to keep in touch with the opposing side, but it's awkward and switching windows to chat can leave you vulnerable at the wrong time.

The real value of a creep/freep /PVP chat would be if it was global to the entire game. Currently if freeps need more players they can just advertise in /world. If creeps need help they have to log out of the moors, hop on one of their freeps, advertise in world chat and then alt back. A cumbersome process that takes them out of play for several minutes. Chat alts don't work for that because they typically haven't met the requirements for world chat.

As an added bonus, anyone not interested in PVP simply wouldn't join that channel, which would mean that people who have no interest in it shouldn't be seeing it in /world anymore. The only addition it would need is to prefix anyone in the channel with [C] or [F] so everyone would know which side the speaking character was on.

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Originally Posted by Askelin

There are various gameplay reasons why creeps won't ever be allowed out the moors. Though we can still pray and hope for the possibility of server events for such a thing (think to the creeps out of Eregion/forochel events that the Russian servers did many years ago), but that's not on the cards right now.

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This is continually brought up, and thankfully will never happen outside of events on test servers. Invariably the people who ask for it want to stand at Little Delving and gank brand new level 5 characters exiting the intro. That's a good way to get new players to uninstall the game.

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Originally Posted by JonXu

2. Heal tagging. I remember when there were no healers at all. And that was the ####ier situation than some people get some extra credit for healtagging, at least in a fight situation healer is doing what it is supposed to do. The ideal would be if the healer gets credit if the job is done well. for actual healing, I mean if the target was really healed. The current situation will be like all healers try to DPS AF. and that poor soul who dies will cry and ask why no heal, you know why :D

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Healers should still be getting credit for kills, if they're in a group. You just can't heal random passing strangers while you AFK in Grams/GV and get rewarded.

Quoting Orion with my emphasis, "Players outside of fellowship or raids no longer earn infamy/renown or ‘Commendations’ when healing a player who defeated an opponent in the Ettenmoors. To get recognition for the defeat, a player must deal at least 2% of the damage to the target or be part of the fellowship or raid that defeats the target."

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Originally Posted by Ameranth

It would be a good addition though. Sure, on certain servers it would be a troll fest, but people can use /ignore or just leave the channel entirely. On other servers, the majority of players would be using it to say 'good fight', or 'two of our group dropped, can someone alt to keep the fight even?'. Both are things that we already do using chat alts to keep in touch with the opposing side, but it's awkward and switching windows to chat can leave you vulnerable at the wrong time.

The real value of a creep/freep /PVP chat would be if it was global to the entire game. Currently if freeps need more players they can just advertise in /world. If creeps need help they have to log out of the moors, hop on one of their freeps, advertise in world chat and then alt back. A cumbersome process that takes them out of play for several minutes. Chat alts don't work for that because they typically haven't met the requirements for world chat.

As an added bonus, anyone not interested in PVP simply wouldn't join that channel, which would mean that people who have no interest in it shouldn't be seeing it in /world anymore. The only addition it would need is to prefix anyone in the channel with [C] or [F] so everyone would know which side the speaking character was on.


This is continually brought up, and thankfully will never happen outside of events on test servers. Invariably the people who ask for it want to stand at Little Delving and gank brand new level 5 characters exiting the intro. That's a good way to get new players to uninstall the game.

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Thing is though, I'm not sure if the effort to make that chat system is worth it because almost all creeps have a character that can access world chat, there's no 5 minute timer for switching to freepside either, it takes you out the fight for a few minutes but that's just how it is.
The question is... Is it worth the effort for the effect it brings to the game?

A universal chat could work in theory, and I can see its benefits... The Bombadil server had a fully open world chat, just with the technical restrictions of opposing factions not being able to IM eachother. It served a pretty neat way to issue callouts for specific areas that are under attack and organize fights. But then again the entire nature of that server was fully open world pvp and you pretty much had to use world to know what was going on... As for PvMP, you can still do callouts for your side of the moors through OOC as has been done for years now.
Creep OOC *is* the entire world for them. I am not convinced that it's too big an issue for someone to switch to freep and post "need more creeps" or act as a sort of emissary on smaller servers where fights have to be more organized. On Laurelin we would use Discord as that universal platform for talking to the opposing sides.

While it's great to have fresh ideas coming in. Both are pretty moot points for the discussion however, we're no where near the point where we can just request things that are unrelated to the current work. The fact we even have a single developer looking into pvmp even in the short term is a miracle, and it's still possible that all of this will be for naught if higher ups decide it's not worth the time of day... That's just the reality of the situation.
Still, keep those ideas in the back of your mind for the future. Because with a bit of luck we might finally get some recognition and support long term.

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Originally Posted by Papillon

Just a couple of points i haven't seen raised yet in theses threads but of some importance.

1) lot of talk about freep vs creep imbalance however hardly a peep about the playes vs npcs imbalance. The freeps with their higher dps/cc demolish npc's enabling them to quickly flip points like keeps , outposts and delving bosses. I was in a freep raid that demolished Gary in less than 10 seconds. Creeps on the other hand struggle with npc's on the landscape because of their inferior dps/cc and AoE skills. This means questing for noob creeps is infinitely more dangerous , it means them being often caught struggling to get some buffs from the landscape so they can at least get some points for playing. My tribe plays twice a week , every time we spend the first hour not pvp'ing but trying to get some infamy buff so we are not stuck with 20% when we log into the blue maps.... Freep renown gain seems always 5+ times greater than their creep counter parts. The other point is capped r15 creeps don't get infamy so have little inclination to spend time helping the lower ranks get something for their play time. These are things which should be addressed in future changes.

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More details on anything else that is planned in the near future will be discussed next week. Stay tuned to the forums for more details.

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Originally Posted by Papillon

2) The LI update caused a range imbalance in the moors, freeps now out range creeps. What does this mean in an rvr fight not much however they can kill delving bosses ie gary or the drake from above easier quickly with little risk to themselves.
More importantly they out range the creep npc oneshots. The worse aspect of this is they can kill creeps who spawn after death in rez circles quickly before they even have a chance to finish spawning. As a minimum the NPC creeps should have the same if not greated range than the freeps have with their LI tracer buffs.

Enough said for now, thanks for your time and interest in these comments Orion. :cool:

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I am a fan of counterplay. More details to come.

Thanks for all that you are doing to try to make PVP in SSG be more balanced and playable. There are a couple of simple things that should only take a tweak that I would make some of us creeps happy while you are working on the overall big plan for the Moors.

Make all quest mats stack to 500. Make pots/food and trackers stack to at least 100.

Most every creep class has a skill that is not working properly, for example Centre for BA does not restore power like it is suppose to, instead it drains it. Having those work properly would be great.

Fix the Brand, so that it actually works and goes of when you click it.

Something that may not be so quick/easy, is to fix the range extension on the freeps LI. I dont think you guys thought it through when you allowed that, especially how it would affect the Moors. Just doesn't seem right that I can die to freeps while standing in the middle of a rez circle because of ranged extension on LIs.

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Originally Posted by Vilan

You just can't heal random passing strangers while you AFK in Grams/GV and get rewarded.

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They should IF and only IF Target IS healed. I agree that just dropping HoTs everyone is stupid and should not be rewarded. but punish for healing? what if the healer is passing another group who has no healer and decides to heal and turn the tables for that fight. that action is not worth credit ?!?

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Originally Posted by Vilan

Quoting Orion with my emphasis, "Players outside of fellowship or raids no longer earn infamy/renown or ‘Commendations’ when healing a player who defeated an opponent in the Ettenmoors. To get recognition for the defeat, a player must deal at least 2% of the damage to the target or be part of the fellowship or raid that defeats the target."

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SO why 2% , why not just any damage. sometimes there is no time to damage, just heal heal heal.
And most time action is outside of groups, forcing random people into groups in not good idea.

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Originally Posted by JonXu

They should IF and only IF Target IS healed. I agree that just dropping HoTs everyone is stupid and should not be rewarded. but punish for healing? what if the healer is passing another group who has no healer and decides to heal and turn the tables for that fight. that action is not worth credit ?!?

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I agree in principle, but the case of an ungrouped healer saving a group from a wipe and not getting credit is far less common and also less of a problem than an ungrouped healer tossing ineffective heals just to leech off the group.
In your example, the healer should expect the group to invite them if they want to stay healed.

My only concern as far as credit goes is that everyone in a raid needs to get credit for any kills made by anyone in the raid. Currently you only get credit if someone in your fellowship has tagged the target, which means healers in each group have to be constantly healtagging someone from each other group in the raid. An odd number of players resulting in a non-healer non-aoe class in their own fellowship in the raid means they're basically out of luck as far as credit goes.

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Originally Posted by JonXu

SO why 2% , why not just any damage. sometimes there is no times to damage, just heal heal heal.

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I presume the idea is to prevent someone from tossing a single attack to leech credit for the kill, and then moving away. Of course, 2% is too low since most attacks will do more than that. Having to do 10% or be in a group that does at least 10% would be more like it.

So in effect to get into a group as a healer they have to solo rank at least to R5.
we will see fewer and less Healers in the moors, at least on freep side they can go DPS

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Originally Posted by JonXu

So in effect to get into a group as a healer they have to solo rank at least to R5.
we will see fewer and less Healers in the moors, at least on freep side they can go DPS

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That's more of an issue with your server culture having a minimum rank to join groups than anything to do with game mechanics. Unlike DPS an R0 healer can still contribute to the group so excluding them is foolish.

Even if your raid leaders are overly picky, getting to R5 just takes a few days of questing.

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Originally Posted by Ameranth

That's more of an issue with your server culture

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But there's only two cultures. Ark and Evernight, so it's reality. It's not like you can pick other servers.

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Originally Posted by SingularityNow

But there's only two cultures. Ark and Evernight, so it's reality. It's not like you can pick other servers.

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There's more servers than just those two.

My server has died off a lot from what it once was but we still get regular small group action, and with the community being smaller it's a lot friendlier than it used to be. All the regulars on both sides know eachother and have good relations and will cooperate to keep fights relatively even, and everyone works together to stop cheaters because we know SSG won't.

I've played massive raids too, but I prefer the smaller groups. There's a lot more strategy and varied skill use when fights aren't simply 20 DPS all point at the same target and nuke it instantly, then move to the next one.

Healtagging needs a few tweaks not healer class genocide. IMO this was the answer to the problem when there were no healers so healers get also some credit. Currently it is too much but reverting back to that problem seems to whack a mole with 2 holes.
the healer must do 2% damage to get credit? what about other classes. They should fall also under the same rule then. everyone needs to make at least 2% damage. Why Hunter who presses one button should get more credit?

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Originally Posted by SSG_Orion

No intent to remove LIs from MP right now.

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I was thinking: Instead of removing LIs from MP, could there be a way to try to "encourage" freeps to use non-LI items instead of LIs in MP?

Something like giving a significant amount of audacity from using those non-LI items in MP. Or maybe better, by introducing a new mechanism in MP like the Light of Eärendil that counters the Shadow of Mordor inside Mordor.

Of course, the experience on freeps without these special non-LI items would need to be not too negative that it would seem too difficult to acquire those items, if they are only obtainable through playing MP a significant amount of time. Otherwise, these special non-LI items could instead be made readily obtainable through purchase from a vendor.

This would allow progression of LIs for PvE, without necessarily changing those special non-LI items designed for use in MP, and vice versa.

If this proves beneficial, the same mechanism could be extended for other types of gear that "should" be used instead in MP as well.

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Originally Posted by JonXu

Healtagging needs a few tweaks not healer class genocide.

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They probably need to incentivize groups at the same time they remove heal tagging, to keep the class viable.

is creep crit defense still broken? cuz basically getting 1 shotted isnt really a fun engaging pvp experience.

champion nerf when?

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Originally Posted by Zaheer

champion nerf when?

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Why don't they build nerfs into the gear I wonder. If set bonuses can buff skills, why not nerf skills? Then if the gear is required because of audacity it can have set bonuses on it that reduces champ sprint or things like that.

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Originally Posted by SingularityNow

Why don't they build nerfs into the gear I wonder. If set bonuses can buff skills, why not nerf skills? Then if the gear is required because of audacity it can have set bonuses on it that reduces champ sprint or things like that.

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This is a really good idea for PvP specific adjustments. Orion, is this possible?

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Originally Posted by subadar

is creep crit defense still broken? cuz basically getting 1 shotted isnt really a fun engaging pvp experience.

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It's not broken, it's just weak- it reduces crit mag but Freep crit mag is... rather high for many classes. I would love for base Creep Crit mag to be significantly stronger- would reduce the massive gap between non crit and crits.