LOTRO Developer Twitter Chat - Thursday February 21, 3:00PM Eastern

[SPARTIOTIS]

A question to all the devs: Do you actually intent to answer any of the questions being asked?

[Sapience]

A question to all the devs: Do you actually intent to answer any of the questions being asked?

Given that this is the third time in as many months that we're doing this and that we have answered questions in the past two, I would say yes.

[SPARTIOTIS]

Given that this is the third time in as many months that we're doing this and that we have answered questions in the past two, I would say yes.

YAY, an answer at last. Thank you Sapience for at least letting us know that someone is monitoring these questions.

[Symbolika1]

Just one question^^: Can we, pleaaaaase, expect at least new hairstyles for our carachters this year?

[Nyrion]

Just got the one question really.

Q: Currently healing, and healing classes as a result, is too potent in the Ettenmoors. Is there any chance of addressing this?(Minis, Wardens, Defilers and Warleaders are the big ones)

[nubcat]

Three questions for Trevor “Jinjaah” McEwen

• A few creep players (especially us girls) were saying how cool it would be to play a female creep (Angmarim, perhaps). What is the chances of that, or any new creep class, being introduced to the game?
• Moors revamp has been great, do you have any plans to keep it from becoming stale?
• Do you like creeps? Sometimes we feel like no one loves us

Thank you!

[Aleatar]

Matt "Hoarsedev" Zimmitti - Lead Systems Designer

-Are there any changes planned for the legendary items system in order to make it less repetitive?
-Will the housing revamp provide some benefits to the players or will remain as something merely cosmetic?
-Any firm plans to revamp the kinship system once that you are done with the housing?

Trevor “Jinjaah” McEwen -- PvMP stuff and class revamp work

-Any chances of seeing "instanced" maps with objectives, skirmishers size, for pvp in smaller groups?

Jared “Kelsan” Pruett – Class revamp work and core systems

-With the future class revamp, are there any plans to make the trait system more determinant in the classes.
-Any plans for any new classes in the future?

[Darlgon]

Any chance you guys plan on issuing the "Official" version of the dev chat, for those of us who dont "Tweet"? (I pretty much hate that word. BIRDS tweet.) You guys have the forums for your official releases.

Oh, bah,.. I see now its next week. Was thinking you were having that tweetfest to cover some of the dead time from the game downage yesterday. Still..

[Nyrion]

Any chance you guys plan on issuing the "Official" version of the dev chat, for those of us who dont "Tweet"? (I pretty much hate that word. BIRDS tweet.) You guys have the forums for your official releases.

Oh, bah,.. I see now its next week. Was thinking you were having that tweetfest to cover some of the dead time from the game downage yesterday. Still..

Last time we had a Dev Chat they copied the questions and answers into a new thread in this section. I imagine they will do the same for this one.

[Thorbain]

I was thinking something more of an armour set storage as i know many people have collected them over the years and the expansions, it would be nice to finally have some sort of system where people can put their old armour sets instead of having to destroy them to make space in vaults and so on.

[Figost]

Just a few ideas i would like to see implimented in the future

1, catch your own rohan horse give it random stats and a cooldown of say 1 day to catch another if the stats were not to your liking

2, better flag options on kin house vaults , IE can flag items for select people to loot from the chest ,other items needing higher standing (officers) and rare items flaged for kin leader only to remove /reflag

3, an option to level the rohan horse past 50 maybe a quest or series to take it a level or so each quest

just my pennys worth

[Keidnard]

- Are there plans for bringing new sub-area- or city-maps for special areas, to give a better feeling and orientation for those? (f.e. Thorins Hall, Esteldin, Tinnudir, Bockland, Aughaire, 21st Hall etc)

- Is there the possibility that we will be able to dive underwater someday?

[Aethelwald]

This one is for now and for our community leader here.

Sapience - this Twitter conference format certainly has its merits. However, have you considered something more free form to supplement it....say, using perhaps Google Hangouts or the like to hold more of a Town Meeting event moderated by a member of the gaming press where questions are asked by players?

I believe there are many who'd appreciate something a bit less controlled from time to time.

Thanks!

[Morneniel]

I have a few questions
1. Has it been decided yet what in what way the housing will change?
2. Will we ever get a house per character? My poor dwarf never liked elves for roommates and can't wait to move out

[Omen_Kaizer]

Why must all the training dummies reset? This makes parsing damage very troublesome to classes with DoT-based DPS specs like Wardens and fire RKs. May we have long-lasting training dummies placed inside barracks/etc?

[Armitas]

As things are now several classes have the ability to alter their strength to accommodate moving between a group and solo role. However the captain is currently stuck within this equation... Captain power = (individual contribution + group contribution). Individual contribution remains poor to keep the captain balanced and equal to other classes contribution while in a group.

When a captain leaves a group all that remains of that equation is poor individual contribution. Do you plan or will you entertain a mechanic that will allow us to rebalance that equation for solo play? Effectively allowing us to subtract from "group contribution" to add to individual contribution in the same way a Guard can subtract from his tank role to add to his dps role or a mini subtracting from his group heals to increase solo performance.

[Windklinge]

3. Will Ost Dunhoth be scaled anytime soon? How about Rift and Helegrod?

useless question mate. delete it please.
if you would have read the forums or the testserver one you would already KNOW that ost dunhoth will be scaled with the next patch u10. helegrod IS already scaled.... rift will come later. DN should come before rift tough since the lifespan of DN was to short compared to RIFT which was endgame for over 1 year while DN was not even nearly 6 months.


my question is quite simple :

when will we get cosmetic weapons/shields?

or a similar feature like many other mmos have to transmute our weapon styles. i just HATE the look of the new max lvl legendarys yet i am forced to use them because well legendary > anything else in terms of weapons. this is something this game really should get too. its standard in most modern mmos already.

[Merwick]

Not sure who'd like to answer these questions, if anyone:

1. Will Edoras and Helm's Deep be lvl 85 content or are we to have another level cap increase with what might be an other expansion in the near future?

2. Will we ever have a revamp of Nan Corunir and Isengard? Currently we can stroll around there with on-level characters without any feeling of threat or danger, with some careful footwork even the two trolls can be avoided and we can pop in and out of Isengard without a scratch. Even the Ranger quest giver inside the walls seems to feel invulnerable as the White-Hand orcs walk around him seemingly his best friends. Is Isengard meant to be so lovey-dovey? Almost expecting a big kiss on the lips from Saruman whenever I meet him.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Not sure who'd like to answer these questions, if anyone:

1. Will Edoras and Helm's Deep be lvl 85 content or are we to have another level cap increase with what might be an other expansion in the near future?

2. Will we ever have a revamp of Nan Corunir and Isengard? Currently we can stroll around there with on-level characters without any feeling of threat or danger, with some careful footwork even the two trolls can be avoided and we can pop in and out of Isengard without a scratch. Even the Ranger quest giver inside the walls seems to feel invulnerable as the White-Hand orcs walk around him seemingly his best friends. Is Isengard meant to be so lovey-dovey? Almost expecting a big kiss on the lips from Saruman whenever I meet him.

1. Has already been answered - we will see these things in the next expansion which will increase the level cap. Once again this will be in th Autumn - do people not read the forums before posting on them? :P
2. Why would Isengard get a revamp when no other area has in the way which you are suggesting? I can stroll through Carn Dum on level without fear of dying if you know the right routes (the bit outside the instance I mean), and this is the same for many places across the map - if you want a challenge in Isengard, get into ToO T2 CM. At the moment NC + Isengard are surely way down the list of priorities, as they are well functioning regions... the Trollshaws or the Misties on the other hand...

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Just a few ideas i would like to see implimented in the future

1, catch your own rohan horse give it random stats and a cooldown of say 1 day to catch another if the stats were not to your liking

2, better flag options on kin house vaults , IE can flag items for select people to loot from the chest ,other items needing higher standing (officers) and rare items flaged for kin leader only to remove /reflag

3, an option to level the rohan horse past 50 maybe a quest or series to take it a level or so each quest

just my pennys worth

These aren't questions for the devs, these are suggestions, and I reckon they belong in that section...

[Schinderhannes]

• Does everybody, regardless of class, have a positional dmg modifier when attacking from behind?

• Swordhalls T2 Hardmode is extremly hard, will there be some adjustemts in difficulty? Maybe less bats or less damage from them. Or interruptable Merrevails?

• What are the reasons not show the player how many raw threat their skills deal. (in tooltips)

• Some percentages like %runspeed, %attackspeed or +/-%threat are not shown in the character sheet, will this change?

[Thranthir]

Jared “Kelsan” Pruett – Class revamp work and core systems
There's been some concerns on the forum that the class revamps might change the skillsets into a tree-line variation as can be seen in The Rift for example.. Are you able to tell us that we're worrying about nothing and confirm this will not be happening?

Will we see more focus on making each class the best at their main role instead of making all classes being Hybrids..? I didn't pick a Guardian because I want to be able to do as much damage as a Hunter.. I want to be able to be the toughest and best agro controller in the group.. with the ability to do some damage if needed but never as much as a main damage class.. why should we choose a specific class if it's not excelling in something?

Joe "jwbarry" Barry - Instances & Raids
Is the breaking apart large instances into wings without raidlocks the way forward, or will we ever be able to see scaled multi-boss raids with locks as how the Rift of Nûrz Ghâshu is? A Large part of the community is missing the immersion more and more in the wing-raids these days..

Matt "Hoarsedev" Zimmitti - Lead Systems Designer
Why did the Housing system get priority over the Kinship system? I don't mind but I'd love to know the reasoning (discussions )..

Trevor “Jinjaah” McEwen -- PvMP stuff and class revamp work
Has there been thoughts of having the keeps also reset to a Delving of Fror faction after an X amount of time..? This might help with changing battle locations across the map..

[Vulcan583]

Any plans to rework the loremasters blue line? ATM it feels like you can kind of heal and kind of use your pets, I feel like either focusing the pets by increasing their DPS a lot, or making our healing better(in combat rezz?) would be more useful.

[Merwick]

1. Has already been answered - we will see these things in the next expansion which will increase the level cap. Once again this will be in th Autumn - do people not read the forums before posting on them? :P
2. Why would Isengard get a revamp when no other area has in the way which you are suggesting? I can stroll through Carn Dum on level without fear of dying if you know the right routes (the bit outside the instance I mean), and this is the same for many places across the map - if you want a challenge in Isengard, get into ToO T2 CM. At the moment NC + Isengard are surely way down the list of priorities, as they are well functioning regions... the Trollshaws or the Misties on the other hand...

1. There's not been a mention of a level cap increase, merely a new expansion. You're presuming (probably correctly) that there will be another level cap increase with the expansion, but I'd like to ask the Devs that question.

2. Isengard is still the main antagonist in our timeline, and if anything, it should be getting stronger by the time Rohan is invaded. Leaving Nan Curunir + Isengard at level 75 when its minions are threatening Rohan seems absurd. It made sense to have a weak area when the threat from Saruman was covert. If it stays like that throughout the next expansion, we'd be missing a huge oportunity, both lore-wise and in terms of gameplay. Again, I'd still like the opinion of the devs on this.

[Joene]

Thank you again for this Dev chat. I really like it!

Housing
1. We are all very happy that housing will be changed in a future update. You mentioned you were toying with a few ideas, can you mention one or several of your ideas?
2. Will we be able to buy a house in a homestead, outside of Eriador? (E.g. a homestead in Edoras/Moria/...)

Previous content.
1. Moria got a nice revamp. Are you planning on doing this on pre-Moria content? (not saying that everything should be solo-able, but a better flow in questing would be much appreciated)

Thank you for your time and effort!