Introductions and Design Intent

[Kheld_UK]

Not trying to start a flamewar here, but Lotros PvP mechanic has always been regarded as weak, an afterthought, a bolt-on etc etc.

Ask everyone what their favourite PvP has been. 8/10 times you will get the answer DAOC RVR. (Which I didnt consider perfect but overall it was great fun sometimes). One of my best gaming memories ever was successfully defending a Midgard Fort against a horde of attackers for hours. Its pretty much agreed that DAOC RvR worked so well due to the 3 realm setup.

You also need to to consider a mechanic that was introduced to counter open world zergs. Instanced battles like WAR's scenarios / RIfts Warfronts. Although they generated their own set of problems. I always thought that "RvR faction" gain should be 10x greater in open RvR as opposed to scenarios to get people fighting in the open.

Guildwars PvP is probably the best most balanced there has even been. As each side had the same classes & most of the same skills.

Lotr is the IP with the greatest sieges & battles in the whole of Fantasy. I have no idea how the heck you are going to do them justice but I sincerely hope you do.

[EN-Esty]

Nice to see a people are still working on this. As a guardian the best point in your list has to be that you want to encourage closer fighting Other stuff I would like to see would be:

Rewards:

• Comparable incomparable armour sets equivalent to PvE but designed specifically for PvP
• New PvP only skills
• Remove all current methods of freep reward acquisition. While I understand why it is the way it is (e.g. can’t introduce new rewards which are equally difficult to attain for vets and noobs alike as currency is stock piled) it has become a bit of a confusing mess.
• PvP rewards should come from PvP. While some PvE objectives may be acceptable the majority of rewards should come from PvP.
• This should be done through non-retroactive deeds that include a balance of objectives for rewards, e.g. kill x number of enemy, take x keep etc. Vets and noobs would therefore face the same challenge and you can make the rewards decent without being too easily attained by vets.

Balance:
While I think it would have been better to never allow freeps into the moors and instead have them play session characters similar to creeps (maybe even our skirmish chars) it’s likely too late for that.

Instead one of the biggest grievances with the moors fights has always been the zerg mentality. You could achieve perfect between characters and yet the moors would still not be balanced because the biggest influence on balance is numbers and this is what really needs to be addressed. Either there needs to be a way of controlling how many people are fighting each other or there needs to be a better method of buffing the underdogs so that they can rise to the challenge. The ideal would be a system that could count the number of participants in the area and nerf/buff based on this.


Additional:

• Cross server PvMP to balance numbers
• PvMP skirmishes for smaller scale and objective based fights
• Cosmetics not hidden in moors
• Something done to address the travel imbalances
• I understand that the improvements to PvMP are coming because you hope to profit on the system with the store but please be careful here. PvMP is a competitive environment and being able to purchase an advantage here is not going to go down well at all. This includes ren/inf/rank.
• Dynamic fights: camping has always been a bit of a problem in LotRO. It also made it difficult to have keep fights because there was never any real advantage in doing so. People need a reward for fighting elsewhere and the biggest incentive in the moors is inf/ren gain so this is what I'd suggest: small areas of the zone that boost our inf/ren gain when we fight within them and which randomly move around the map on different timers to ensure the fight is kept moving. They would vary in size to promote different group sizes and could be based on the quest system which already provides a good method of tracking where the nearest zone would be. If based on the quest system it could even set objectives while you're in said zone, e.g. simply kill x number of enemy or more advanced attack/defend a certain player, npc, keep or item objective. What I'd hope this would achieve would be to keep the battle area constantly moving and set objectives for players to achieve to reduce the farming stalemate we currently see.

Sorry for the length of the post but as one of the first testers of PvMP I've always been a bit dismayed that it has very rarely reached its potential and has become so predictable and stale. Good luck
-Esty

[PhantomPunkk]

I wish you luck. So many things in the Moors are irrelevant or impotent or ignored or over focused on and so forth. It is a place of extremes with no room for middle ground. My request is something akin to focused pvp. A sub- zone or instance where a set amount of Freeps face off against a set amount of Creeps. That would be fantastic.

As it stands the Moors has been either a terrible or fantastic place to be depending on the players, time and collective situation. Here is to hoping the highs get higher and the lows higher too.

[Oren]

I see that very few have actually answered the question - namely points with data, but have given wishlists instead. There is a good technique called the 5 whys? Basically if you answer why somebody has said something, then ask why that answer is the case and so on, by the time you get to the fifth why you get to the root cause of the issue. A lot of the points made already are on that first or second why.

Here are some points with non imperical data that I hope will be of use (if you want imperical data - ask the Germans on the DE servers, they live for that sort of stuff!)- I have tried to avoid 'you should do it this way' but tried to describe the effect on the grounds that you are the devs not me so will have other points to bear in mind:

1. Dont forget the EU servers when asking for points. Please also use the codemasters forums in your research or ask them for an account and play there too. Data PVP is massive and different there, and without being confrontational invariably had the first R15s, the highest ranked creeps and most of the firsts, like dropping the drake in DoF. I have PvMPed both creep and freep on both EU and US.

2a. Anything that can be done to spread fights over the map is a good thing. Too many people know the way between CV STAB Tol WTAB OC Grams and nowhere else. Data People who think (incorrectly imho) they are hardened PvPers will brush off anything other than pew pew between STAB and EC as PvE for lamers - and should be incentivised to get out and about more. Even something small as changinig the nodes to khazad copper has seen a lot more play in and around isendeep on our server - as this is used to make the edhelharn tokens that the pve raiders need to complete their instances.

2b. The landscape should be completly interactive and affect gameplay - datagreat feature removed was the 3 hotspots around tol - affected the buffs in Tol in a battlewinning way.

3. The effects in the moors should significantly affect the whole world. This would integrate pvmp better into the server Data There are minor effects, but nothing that will stop the latest PvE raid from success. Perhaps a blue map should make for battlewinning differences? and a red map something to make the creeps want to defend other than access to the map quests. Freeps leave the map red for too long - suddenly reavers are charging into the prancing pony.....sorry, I digress

4. Stop the zergs. data makes any effort in balancing classes irrelevant and ruins new player experience (see above thread).

5. Balance the reward system to achievement using skill/ability - ren/inf is fine but what is rating all about? dataOK we lost stars - didnt make too much difference in behaviour, but the higher your rating the more inf/ren you get - ok that makes sense and a good reward for achievement BUT why does somebody who gets hit solo by 24 people lose massive rating and not very much loss by if killed by a solo player - surely it should be the other way around.

6. Ren/inf for healing classes has come up a few times - no data on this, but mad rant, but they should NOT get ren/inf for healing as you could just stand on STAB or EC healing everyone (in the current scenario) and progress your character but without actually learning any more about how to play it. Perhaps a ren/inf buff for when they do damage that ends in a kill would be more appropriate? (except for minstrels in warspeech and RKs that are battle attuned of course )

7. Hardware/software - what ever you do the one personal plea is please please please do something about the low fps when 24 creeps smash into 24 freeps, lag, skill-lag, rubberwalls, late appearing npcs and rollbacks.

8. Good luck, the PvMP lot are a tough crowd to please so dont let them dishearten you!

[Xiir]

Welcome to our community!

Since they have enough money to add you to the payroll, do they also have enough money to shell out for new servers or completely new server tehcnology? The lag in the Moors is atrocious and a big downer at times way beyond any class balancing changes.

Have you already been working on the pvmp changes coming with the Isengard expansion? Can you shed some light on those? Its been said we are getting a new area.... is that a new map or some sort of instanced 6v6 or 12v12 pvp? Its been quite a while without any new information,...

[Sthrax]

Welcome to the team and good luck!

A few thoughts from someone newer to PVP in this game...

I should never, ever have to PVE in the Ettenmoors to attain PVP reward items. If I want to PVE, i will do so in the many fantastic areas already devoted to that. But when I'm in the moors, I want to PVP, not worry about how to find and kill PVE targets so I can get a piece of jewelry/armor that I can't wear unless I PVP enough to acquire the needed rank.

Melee vs ranged needs to be looked at- melee feels rather useless much of the time.

Dots and CC are way too important in the current environment.

Lag is just awful much of the time. Your server hamsters need an upgrade- maybe a few Cave Troll hamsters

[Dyfrin]

I had a very long post and the ......... forums kicked me out of logged in... even with opening a new tab, logging in, switching profiles, and hitting back, the page was lost forever..

So instead of having a thought out, referenced post you get this, blame your web developers.

#1.
CC
Freeps have too much, creeps have about right.
CC is being used two ways.
Disable an opponent.
Prevent fleeing.

We all need to prevent fleeing, be it a morale based debuff automatically applied, the red eye from SoA when you are behind someone, or whatnot.
The cooldown of the cc skills to disable an opponent need to be increased, remove potions. You shouldn't be able to get out of a stun if that is the class's primary skill base. You shouldn't be able to stun lock either.

#2
NPCS
Make npcs tether shorter, and have ranged snare and stun. This makes kiting them around and ??? them hard.
Also it drops in combat status faster.

#3
Rewards
Have prestige back.
People can look up ratings on leader boards, and it hasn't changed anything except one less reason to pvmp.

Freep armour
have ranked armor sets.
5 - like moria
8 - like helegrod
10 - like bg
12 - like west
15 - best in game period.

Have the set bonuses have more proc type of items, defensive, offensive, have resists to CC, and have the set bonuses dependent on how many keeps are controlled.
Have the way you obtain them not through silly pve quests, but pvmp ones..
defeat 20 wargs when you get the quest to get the helmet, 20 defilers for legs, etc.

I had a lot more, but the ridiculous forums turbine has removed any interest in repeating the half hour of documenting other threads and stats with examples.

Web devs, you have ruined this post, and stop giving my game login out every time I view a forum page!

[DorianFalkenmond]

I am very positively surprised to hear that a new dev is named for the development of PVMP. The last year of non-communication was discouraging for many players. I hope you can continue what you´ve shown in your first post, Kelsan: give players ideas of where we are going, and ask for feedback.

I am even more positively surprised to hear that Orion may be working on PVMP again; I´ve read these forums since LOTRO start in Europe, and my impression was always that Orion was communicating and was working on improvement for PVMP.


I will not talk about BA nerfs and burg OP skills. All this is important to some degree, but more important to me is what CodeofMisconduct asked for: "First and foremost, I'd like to see a description of the end-state that you have envisioned for PvP. Before anyone, player or developer alike, can offer insightful analysis, we need to know exactly what your (our) intentions are on a macro-cosmic level. One such example would be the rough, overall weight of Creeps to Freeps... are we supposed to be at relative parity or is one side supposed to be the outnumbering side? "

This was answered long ago by Jalessa, saying that the basic concept of creeps outnumbering freeps was discontinued and that general parity was the (new) design goal. Is this still the goal, or are you going "back to the roots", back to the assumption that creeps have numbers, but freeps have better skills and better weapons..?

The last changes are pointing there. My understanding (and my fear) of what has happened lately to PVMP is that you are going back to the approach that creeps have to have higher numbers to get kills.

Is this where you are heading again?

Regards from Germany from a creep veteran on Belegaer server

[knd4bama]

I have been waiting for PvMP changes since I lvled an alt to 10 and parked him at the scrying pool in Bree so excuse me for not getting my hopes up when turbine makes yet another claim to make improvements to this aspect of the game.

My PERSONAL views are that anything that a freep gets from PvMP that is r13 or higher should be the absolute best in the game. Period. Although it is much easier for a freep than a creep to rank this high it is still a huge accomplishment and should be rewarded with something better than some meh cloak or horse.

I play exclusively creepside when in Moors on Windfola between the hours of midnight and 3 am CST so I know that you can not make improvements based on my needs or wishes alone. I would like to see some quests that are soloable for some MAJOR dp creepside even if they are on a week long cd so that people like me who have very little time to grind dp can make it up somehow. Maybe an instanced quest?

Give creeps higher mitigation against ranged damage. It is no fun to sit there as a reaver or defiler and get ranged down by 6+ hunters (or rks) in 30 seconds while I wait for my best heal to cd from 30 seconds. Better yet, take away the "sustained" dps and high morale and mits of creeps and give us the ability to hit for 1k+ consistently and heal like BC (1500+ every 3 seconds) so that way we have spike damage like the freeps and blow stuff up instead of having our DoTs be out healed by rk HoTs. This would balance things out more. People want balance so the only way to truly balance PvMP is to make cookie cutter classes creepside but no one wants that ???

Creeps need another class. Tactical damage class.

Men and Dwarves should be able to choose alliances. There are evil men and dwarves in game so why not in PvMP?

I hope that there will be changes made that will get me back out there for the majority of my time. I really enjoy the challenge of creeping of freeping (freeping will always be easier to me) but since MoM came out and freeps got all this insane dps (minstrels hitting me for 1500 but I'm lucky to hit a crit for 500) it hasn't been very fun for the times that I am able to play now.

Good luck to you as you try to do what it is you set out to do but take no offense to my pessimism.

[carpleloctrapus]

I am very happy to see you are looking into great ways to update The Moors. To stop abuse and abuse of game management in The Moors do this and you could start at once.

No characters can trade items or money while in the zone, not freeps not creeps. Make the inital zone bigger still with wall barrier mountains that have to be gone around by either side plus no one can glitch to get on top of and add a few upper and lower areas like a hole in the ground that goes in the way the far eastern side of The Misty Mountans has those cool caves and drop in areas. Just make it more fun.

Myself having made so many creeps over and over I cannot bring myself to go chasing those same map quest collection items again unless I have another stroke. Just cannot bring myself to enter The Moors any more after doing all those quests over and over on each Creep from scratch.

[Yogol]

What is currently very, very unfair to the system, is that freeps can go to the Moors and start there as full-decked out characters. Creeps, on the other hand, start out very, very weak. In the bginning, freeps were maxed at lvl 50, but now they are 65... now new freeps kill new creeps in the blink of an eye.

The result is that if you want to make a new creep, you are pretty musch useless untill you were killed a zillion times. This is not considered fun by most people.

It is a bad design from the start that creeps need to level to get skills while freeps don't.

Untill this is solved, you will never be able to get new players to play creeps.

Ofcourse, your problem is that the existing high-level creeps will kill you if you dare to make stuff easier for new players. So, I don't have any hopes that PvP will ever work here, cause those existing PvPers are a very, very loud bunch, lol.

[Elyske]

What is currently very, very unfair to the system, is that freeps can go to the Moors and start there as full-decked out characters. Creeps, on the other hand, start out very, very weak. In the bginning, freeps were maxed at lvl 50, but now they are 65... now new freeps kill new creeps in the blink of an eye.

The result is that if you want to make a new creep, you are pretty musch useless untill you were killed a zillion times. This is not considered fun by most people.

It is a bad design from the start that creeps need to level to get skills while freeps don't.

Untill this is solved, you will never be able to get new players to play creeps.

Ofcourse, your problem is that the existing high-level creeps will kill you if you dare to make stuff easier for new players. So, I don't have any hopes that PvP will ever work here, cause those existing PvPers are a very, very loud bunch, lol.

As long as you give more skills out to the higher ranks, adding more or improving existing skills won't be an issue for the earlier ranks. Getting new skills is my main drive for even getting infamy, and what seperates creeps from freeps, just increase the amount we get at higher ranks, but give more for the lower ranks too, just in general equipping creeps better would be awesome all around.

To add on my earlier post in the topic, here are some examples of my idea of readjusting the traits into lines;

Make 3 trait lines in the class traits just like Freeps, but instead of giving bonuses in the same manner, have actual Corruptions form on your creep. These will be bonuses to the class that if the Freep doesn't pay attention to, can really develope over the course of the battlefield and make the creep pretty darn powerful. The premise is, the more traits you apply to the specific path, the more often the corruption will spawn after being removed, faster cycle. You can trait for all 3, but having 1 of each will be a slower spawn cycle and wont hit the Tier 3 version.

So it goes: (if fully traited 4 in the line) Combat begins. Corruption activates, tier 1. 8 seconds later, Tier 2 replaces tier 1. 10 Seconds later, tier 3 replaces tier 2. Each 15 seconds after that, a duplicate tier 3 spawns as a backup. If the first tier 3 gets removed it acts as 3 corruptions, and you will have a backed up tier 3 reintroduced.
(if traited less then 4 in one line) Combat begins. Line 1 Tier 1 Corruption activates. 10 seconds later it is replaced by Tier 2 of same Corruption. If dispelled at any point Line 2 Tier 1 corruption begins to apply. So it repeats.

Here are 2 class samples I made, based on existing Enhanced Skills, Advanced Skills, and base Class traits. This system goes on 2 foundational assumptions: That existing traits would be moved around so these can be accessed within rank 6-7.
Assumption 2: That more traits are added if assumption 1 is false.

Warleader

Class traits:
Green line: Persuasive ways of the White Hand Corruption: +5% Healing output, harder to interrupt induction skills
Tier 2: +10% Healing Output, greater anti induction knockback
Tier 3: +10% Healing Output, Inductions can't be knocked back, Immune to daze/root.
harsh language, (ES)on your feet, (ES)field promotion, (ES)Quitters never win

Black line: Unyielding Words of the Eye Corruption: +15% Tactical crit rating, -1000 Penetrate resistance
Tier 2: +20% Tactical crit rating, -1500 Penetrate resistance
Tier 3: +20% Tactical crit rating, -1500 Penetrate resistance, +50% Shadow damage skill increase
Damage boost, Empowering, (ES)Menacing Roar, (ES)black speech

Purple line: Fortifying Paths of the Uruk Corruption: +5% Tactical, Cry, Song resist, +1000 Penetrate resistance
Tier 2: +10% Tactical, Cry, Song Resist, +2000 Penetrate resist
Tier 3: +10% Tactica, Cry, Song resist, +2000 Penetrate resist, +15% maximum Morale, +300 Morale every 10 seconds.
Shield Mastery, Avoidance boost, (ES)Purge, (ES)Snap out of it

Blackarrow

Green line: Entrapping Snares of the White Hand Corruption: -5% Skill Induction time, -10% Power Cost
Tier 2: -10% Skill Induction time, -15% Power Cost
Tier 3: -15% Skill Induction time, -15% Power Cost, Strong Pull puts a -50% Run Speed on targets for 5 seconds.

(ES)Gash, Penetrating Arrows, (ES)Hindering Shot, (ES)Death Blossom

Black line: Searing Flames of the Eye Corruption: +5% Ranged crit rating, Changes Common Damage on ranged induction skills to Fire.
Tier 2: +10% Ranged Crit rating, Changes common damage on ranged induction skills to Fire.
Tier 3: +10% Ranged Crit rating, Changes common damage on ranged induction skills to Fire, Death Blossom has no cooldown.

Swift Draw, (ES)Steadfast barrage, Deadly Aim, (ES)Headshot

Purple line: Swift Feet of the Uruk Corruption: Immune to Roots, Strong Pull has no Induction.
Tier 2: Immune to Stuns, Strong Pull has no Induction.
Tier 3: Immune to Roots, Stuns, Strong Pull has no Induction.
Uncanny Reactions, Avoidance Boost, Resistance boost, (ES)Set a trap,

(Moving Target Becomes a stance that generates this corruption only, when traited 4 in.)
Moving Target: +25 Evade chance, +50% Ranged evade chance

[FoxFire]

Things I would personally like to see for PvMP, which others will flip out over.

1) Creep Only zones for standard questing and leveling from 1 to cap. (Mordor)

2) PvMP skirmishes, or smaller battlegrounds, with varying objectives.

3) Cross server groups to increase total participation in these skirmishes.

4) With a larger population to fill zones and battlegrounds, new full scale PvMP zones.

5) Smaller landscape areas on the regular map that are designated as PvMP. Creeps can't walk outside them. Well they can, but they'll get one shotted.

Oh, and by-the-way, none of this should unduly impact the development of the PvE game and epic story progression.

[Shanehere]

Revitalization

Improve the underlying systems in ways that enhance the experience of PvMP, providing more reasons for new and existing players to continue to participate in the system.

Reduce/Remove restrictions that detract from the experience
Example: Book 3 revisions to Creep play.

Allow advancement of points after hitting cap rank for bragging rights and encouraged play after.

Also after cap ratings should be shown as stars? OR every 100000 points or so, a star should be added to the icon. Nothing more awesome than to be the 5-star Captain General!

Do not add more ranks. I think four years or more of dedicated service is enough.

More stats on the wartab. (Some people like to brag about stats and it helps them set goals)

- Points per kill pnt/k
- Average of Points for every death points/deaths
- How many kills does it take to get one killing blow? k/kbs
- Rating is still an issue and unknown in purpose for many people (every .1 after 1 gives +1% points for a max of 10% or 2.000 rating). Would like to revise the purpose on rating and other avenues of getting there. Rating has the connotation of prestige. Right now it means you haven't died in forever due to whatever factors. Common names are star huggin and ez moding. These are not honorable titles to be received by the community. This is why the purpose of rating needs to be revised.
- This also helps maintain ones rating, instead of losing a big chunk for one silly death.

Get a higher rating for:
- High k/d ~30
- High kb/deaths ~2.5
- High pts/k ~30
- All mentioned above will encourage all player types, raidbabies, soloers, small groups.

Reward Structure
PvMP exclusive rewards
- Just as creeps get skills and improved skills through rank so should Freeps, exclusive to the moors of course.
- PvMP deeds should give a lump sum of points
- This will encourage competition of getting kbs and encourage people to solo.
- Also add a deed for number of kills for the ones who won’t be getting a lot of killing blows like healers.
- Deeds should give turbine points in the moors.

Enhanced PvMP Advancement

- I like how it is now, armour for Freeps, DP for Creeps
- Ratio Stats are very important.
- You could also advance through pvmp by the amount of kills and killing blows.
- Examples
• Every 100,000 kills grants large sum of points or destiny
• Every 1,000 killing blows grants large sum of points/destiny
• Maybe a permanent percent increase when hitting a certain level of kills, kbs, or even rank

Rewards for zone control
- PvMP only, there should be no incentive PvPing to PvE

Encourage play during off-peak hours
Balance
The never ending struggle of Creep vs Freep; Fun vs Fair.
Skill/Rotation audits

Purpose, Potency, and CDs

- All class CDs should have a max of 10-15 minutes (that way we can have most if not all CDs are reset before the next major battle), exception racial CDs.
- Cap the amount of damage one can do to a single player, % or set number OR allow all players to be able to hit over said % or set number
o Rarely do creeps hit over 3k.
Revise existing instead of adding new
The all too infamous issues of numbers.
- Cant cap the number of people to play
- Zerg is inevitable rather unwillingly or not.

Resolution for zergs?
- No raids can be made on either side, fellowships only; this will discourage the raid zerg and encourage fellowships. It’s hard to coordinate the goldtags so maybe this all the soloers and groups to go other places. It also allows for the uncertainty of what is to happen. There will still zergs just not as much or in the amount of participants.
- Increase or decrease the number of NPCs to the correlating side.
- And strengthen/weaken the NPCs accordingly
- Allow the same Outnumbered buff


Melee vs Ranged
Closing distance without completely negating ranged attackers.
- Encourage Melee vs. Melee and Ranged vs. Ranged? I really have no clue for this.

Unification of Purpose

Since launch, the reasons for Creeps and Freeps to participate in PvMP have not been aligned. This has lead to differing levels of interest between the factions. Unification of PvMP goals will help build desire and create a sense of purpose.

Examine the purpose of Rank for both Creeps and Freeps.

- The ultimate goal is rank 15 (at least for me), thus it should be rewarded with something awe inspiring, over the top, incomparable, even OP, again this should only PvP exclusive.

- Why PvP? This game is mostly PvE. I do it for fun as many others do as well. Also with my own time investment an observation of others, I have seen a skill increase the higher the rank. Skill meaning that the player is a good player. Many, not all, people can say they have gotten better as a player through time invested in PvP. Strictly in game; they are more calm and reactive in tough, unexpected, unwinnable situations.

- So in summary PvP to have fun and become a better player.
- This is the only way PvE should be rewarded by vets PvPers.
- So maybe advertise this in someway.
- Daily goal that needs to be met every time. Did I have fun today?
- Another purpose is destiny points for both sides; I would love to spend as much as I gain in a relatively fast manner. I like spending my Destiny Points, but as a Freep it is hard to spend it daily without going broke sometimes.

An audit of the reasons/rewards for zone control.
This is for both sides.
- I was thinking that the rewards/penalties could be either in the surrounding zone of the keep (Example: If creeps control lugs then they’d have the buff all around the steps of gram)
- Increased point/destiny gain.
- Increased point/destiny gain.
- Increased OOC run speed
- Increased damage/healing outside the zone control.
- The penalty is not having the rewards.

[Assassin12]

Please give Defilers an equivalent to warspeech. It will make them more viable soloer and also help to spread out the random zergballs as it will lessen the need to be around others to make playing viable.

Oh and buff guardians please

[Moop69]

I'd just like to point out that you DO have the Monster Play Buff applied to freeps that allows you to modify freep skills for PvMP only. It's obvious, but you would think that in the 2 or so years that it's been around, more skills than just DF would be modified by it.

[StileMajere]

I would like to see a mail system for Creeps. Creeps have no way to have a community other than a Tribe, but that does not help if you need to talk/send a message to a creep that is not online at the same time as you are. An auction house would also be nice!

Please create a creep class that is comparable to Rune Keepers, but lets try to make the new class fit Lord of the Rings lore and story. I have yet to understand how RK's fit the storyline/lore.

Higher food/mana pots/health pots for creeps should cost LESS than the lower ones, after all... you do have to be higher rank to use them anyway. It sucks having to PvE for money to buy your stuff at higher rank, when you have all your maps done anyway.

[Greyowyn]

As much as I would like to present you with a wish list of fun and exciting things I would like to see, I will only say 2 things:

1. fix what is already broken (this is by far the most important thing)
2. undo what you just did to my black arrow with the last update. (this is a selfish wish, but after this last update I think it's justified)

Extended version:
1. before you change things, fix what has already been broken. And when you make these threads, actually listen to people. There is a hoard of angry weavers, because they spend their time filling out bug reports and posting issues on forums, but their cries have fallen on deaf ears. And the only time I have recently noticed turbine employees replying to things on the pvp forums are when people have questions/concerns about deeds/titles, and when our bios disappeared. And neither of those issues really affect gameplay, unlike the nerf to black arrows, or the fact that strong brood doesn't work for a large number of spiders, or the WL bug that's been around for ever, or rollbacks, or landscape exploits, or the fact that my fire trap doesn't work in certain places inside towered keeps, and idk if this skill is WAI or not, but the r9 uruk heal doesn't always heal the caster, which is beyond frustrating in many cases, and the list goes on and on. most of these issues have been around for a heck of a long time.

I think the moors are rather stale, however before you decide to start granting wishes, I would figure out why so many things are broken already, and make sure the new map isn't the same old issues. I would like to report a new bug for once, instead of filling out a bug report for something that I reported a year ago, but still hasn't managed to even gain "known issue" status on some dev's to do list somewhere.


2. http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...row-quot-skill

There is some data. Black Arrows need work, this last update turned them into a class that has very little purpose. you said flaming arrow was to potent, and that it trivialized our other skills. I would like to say that our other skills trivialized themselves, regardless of the CD on flaming arrow. a black arrow is now only decent dps on light armored classes anymore, their CC skills are lacking (hinder root is a joke with DR's in the mix and the slow is only 8s long) and i think 1 LM could probably keep up wound removal from a whole raid of ba flaming arrows (that's only mildly sarcastic). mainly they need non common damage. So if our purpose was not to dps, not to cc, and obviously not to heal (since we get a heal at r9 that's awesome, but well, i don't think I'm a healer...) I don't really know what role I am to fill anymore, since a weaver can do more dps in a rvr situation now.



P.S. I have no data to back this up, but tactical damage is over the top, and freep CC is nuckin futs. Just throwing that in there.

[Lichbane]

Oh and buff guardians please

Sure, they don't seem to do a lot of damage on the moors, but for EYE'S SAKE those little balls of muscle that are downright impossible to kill? If a Guardian actually dies, it's because it was being very stupid!

I would like to see a mail system for Creeps.

Agreed. Mordor Mail outlets need to be proper integrated! Get those goblins working harder, the lazy maggots!

[MrCharisma316]

Easy Fix

Leave Freeps Abilites alone quit buffing them every update

Make Creeps comparable 1v1

make BA's equal to Hunters they get many no induction skills and heartseeker every minute now

give BAs the same

and make VT 1 Min CD

Make Wargs comparable to burgs 2 hips ability to lose dots in stealth

DONT MAKE THE HEALERS in PVE HIT HARDER THAN CREEP DPS!!!

[Yahgee]

I guess I'll start off by saying good luck.

I personally love the PVMP system we have right now. It's nowhere near perfect, but the freedom and diversity in it makes for some really great times. I don't think there is anything that I can bring up new for you so I wont; my game-play experience is something I can't explain on a forum. Only the countless hours of battles can show you what this community hates and enjoys, so I hope you take the time and play both sides for a bit or even just watch others participate in battles. I also would recommend that you try that on both free peoples and monster player accounts on multiple servers, as I can complain about an issue on my server but all the other servers might not have that issue. So best of luck, hope everything works well for you and just know that whatever you guys do, you'll still have at least one person still out there.

[klompy]

Welcome, and good luck!

Inviting us to Beta test stuff, inviting us to provide feedback, receiving that feedback and then denying the problems identified exist by rolling them out on the live servers, not mentioning them in the known issues list and not addressing them in subsequent patches creates the sort of frustration that makes people think twice when it is time to resub. It looks as if this might be addressed now and that is a good thing!

Please allow people outside of the USA to resub with their credit card. We have to be VIP in order to play PvMP, but most people are unable to upgrade or re sub with an overseas credit card. Asking us to send our credit card details to Account Support in an email is NOT an option. Neither is asking us to call an overseas phone number when we do not know how long we may have to wait in a queue. I have a good friend who let her sub lapse and now wants to come back but can't because of your credit card payment issues. I can't even give her a gift sub because you don't offer that as an option through the account management website. The only way to gift a sub is to give your credit card details in an email to account support or phone an overseas telephone number.

Again, welcome and good luck!

[Ivaneus]

I like that we currently have a zone with objectives for groups of all sizes in order to encourage all types of play; as well as two different sides with separate classes and dynamics that can both find way to win fights.

But we have some glaring issues with the Zone right now:

1. Lag. It happens everywhere and we understand that it's not truly avoidable, but the levels we are forced to put up with are atrocious!!! Needs some major rethinking, especially when it comes to flashy, particle intensive freep skills (*cough cough* tactical classes and their lighting bolts/ents/beams of light *cough cough*).

2. While we technically have objectives for varied group sizes, we really don't. I can solo "raid" content. Any Tyrant/CG can be dropped by a healer tank/DPS paire for either side. Clearly this is not working as intended and has not scaled properly. Tyrants and Captain Generals need to be re-worked so that they are more difficult opponents capable of causing serious problems to enemies. Also, rewards for small group quests need to be re-thought out as small grouping is generally ignored. It's Outposts and the Delvings or one of the other two play styles (raid or solo).

3. Tactical Damage needs to be re-thought out for the Ettenmoors. Currently, creeps are fighting opponents who can quite easily defeat them with a wide variety of uncurable effects, very hard hitting attacks, and overblown particle effect animations. These three factors combine to make the entire experience feel incredibly cheesy which does not help create a fun and competitive environment. This is by no means an easy beast to tackle, but it must be addressed for the future of PvMP and to create a more balanced setting where players feel they were beaten by an opponent rather than a Flavor of the Month Class.

4. Uncurable effects. Freeps have got boatloads of these and even some effects that used to be curable are now uncurable (RKs and the -tactical resistance, 10% chance to do 1000+ common damage debuff-whose-name-I-cannot-currently-recall). Uncurable effects are, for the most part, lame and undynamic. While I can support leaving some effects uncurable (power drain DoTs and Captain Marks) the rest of them need to be removable. Carrying potions and using them well is one of those areas that can set players apart from each other. Currently, that dynamic is lacking in far too many cases.

5. NPCs. Too weak to be a hindrance to large groups, too slow at dealing damage to help even up a fight (especially against kiting classes like RKs and Minstrels), and just annoying with their stuns and disarms. The NPCs need to have their numbers thinned, their power boosted, and a greater measure of parity introduced regarding the effects/skills they have/use on players of both sides. Also, the bridge NPC spawn timers need to be looked into, freep Bridge Bots spawn twice as fast as creep ones and it is disturbingly fast.

6. Bugs. All known bugs (even if they aren't on the official list but are still known) need to be looked into. If no solution is found at this time, they should be added to the list of known issues to show us, the players, that you are at least aware of the problems.

Regarding specific Classes I would only like to speak to the Warleader at this point in time.

The Warleader needs more abilities. Period. Discounting the Racial heal and shadow debuff, Warleaders get 3 heals (one on a 10 minute cooldown, 5 at Rank 15 with a Class trait) and 5 Attacks. These abilities all work just fine but it's high time we got some more flavor in our healing and Damage rotations. Especially since we have the new cooldown modifier in Brawlers stance that affects a whole 2 abilities.

I believe I speak for all creeps when I say that it's about time for another Class Trait Slot. Freeps get Legendary Traits so it's not like we're asking for that much to have an equal number of class trait slots as a freeple. Besides, we just picked up even more Class traits with the last Update and can probably expect more with Isengard. But we aren't freeps! Adding traits does not add flexibility to creeps the way it does to freeps. We're too locked down in traits that we must have and don't know what we'll give up at even higher ranks already!

Well that was a bit long, but I think there's merit to all that I've said although I fully expect you (Turbine . . . mostly) to examine the suggestions yourselves and draw your own conclusions.

Thank you for your time.

[pinkfae]

I have been playing out in the Ettenmoors since September of 2007. I have never enjoyed PvP within an MMORPG as much as I have in LOTRO. Perhaps the main reason why I have played for so long is the fact that I'm a life-time subscriber. I don't understand why Turbine decided to stop offering the life-time subscription. I also play out there due to down time between updates. Others might play alternative characters, but that doesn't really interest me. I find PvP to be another place for me to advance my character outside of leveling and raiding.

What I would love to see happen is a PvP skirmish system added. I also would like for creeps to have their own soldiers similar to how freeps have their own. I think this will improve the PvP experience on a number of levels:

It will add lore to PvP. The main reason I picked this game up in the first place was for my love of the world that JRR Tolkien imagined and shared with us in his writings. I love experiencing the quests outside of the Ettenmoors. I love to read the background and history of what is happening in the various regions of Middle-earth within Turbine's take on the legendarium. Yet - unless I somehow missed it - there isn't a quest line that explains why there is this battle struggle for keeps and relics in the Ettenmoors. The introduction to the skirmish system freep side explains to the player why they need to train a solider and fight the various battles. I think there should be an introduction quest for creeps to get a solider that explains why they are in the 'Moors. There could also be a brief quest line similar to In Their Absence quest line that could explain why the freeps have to do these battles.

It will stop the "zerging". The biggest reason why many stop playing is the unbalanced numbers of one side versus the other. I don't like to zerg or be zergged myself. If anything I will log over to the other side to try to balance the population, if possible. (Meaning that I can only do it if I go from my creep to my freep, but not the other way around.) Having a skirmish system where players are queued up and then enter the battlefield once the numbers are balanced will stop this.

It will open other maps for PvP. The world of LOTRO is one of the biggest among all of the other MMORPGs out there. It doesn't make sense to invest man hours creating a new zone for PvP when there is already so many other maps out there already. I would love to take my spider to Bree or the 21st Hall and have some fights there. After four years playing on the same map, I can probably walk around it with my eyes closed.

[TUX426]

I completely agree with what i have quoted above. There needs to be a pvp map for lower ranks, and one for higher ranks so people have fair competition. I also agree that the higher ranked map should be VIP only, or Turbine points. There also should be a test people have to pass to get to the new map? Like fighting 3 elite mobs? ( just a random number), because i dont want someone who has leeched to get to r6 and start in the high ranked pvp zone.

I completely agree with what (who) you quoted too, but I am 100% against ANY "elitist" areas that require people to do anything other than JOIN!

I don't know why it should matter if a player is new to 65 and PvP or a basement dwelling Dwarf who does nothing BUT PvP. We ALL start somewhere and making PvP easy to get into gets more people trying and playing it. If you make the current area 40-60 only, you'll kill it.

Add new areas, add several...but make them easy to enter and available to anyone 55+ (freep), sooner if creep (because not every PvPer cares about leveling their freep). Take some of the vast city instances and include their design in a new zone (Angamar, GA, Goblin Town), . LOTRO has some of the most astounding cities in and areas to explore...and so many are used ONCE or just to level and roll past. Take several of those instances and incorporate them into a new area, or even branch them off the existing Moors like the Delving is.