Ask The LOTRO Team – Answers to your questions – February 6, 2014

[Lohi]

I'd like to make a point that since we're expecting no new instances at all, having new scaled instances would be more satisfying.

It seems like they are thinking about this though. Seeing Foundry mentioned was exciting to me, I'd run that many times in preference to any raid.

[Cardal]

For the love of god just give us some new raids. You're losing many players. We need something that tests our new skills and power we have. Or at least do something with mounted combat. I'd be great to see something to appeal to your raiding base.

[Schmidster]

Thank you for this!

[the.vission]

But we've known this since Helm's Deep came out. Not much reason to keep asking the same question hoping for different answers.

I'm sorry, when/where was this said? I must have missed it. That seems like a ridiculous statement for a company running an MMORPG to make.

[LethalLethality]

I'm sorry, when/where was this said? I must have missed it. That seems like a ridiculous statement for a company running an MMORPG to make.

Ever since Sapience stated before release that there would be no Raids or Instances associated with the Helm's Deep expansion. That doesn't just mean the time immediately after release, but generally until the next expansion.

Edit: You then take into account that it has been stated that none are currently in the works and that it takes 12-18 months to finish one, and that pretty much says that there will be none in 2014. Maybe late 2015, but definitely not before then.

[frickinmuck]

But we've known this since Helm's Deep came out. Not much reason to keep asking the same question hoping for different answers.

Agreed. It would be nice to move on. I know people are disappointed, and I myself am dismayed, but there's nothing to be done. Can we please just change the narrative, because months of downer negativity have been more than enough. Let's just move forward with what we have, and if some people need to take a break to go find other ways to satisfy their gaming needs, LotRO will still be here if/when they return.

[Schinderhannes]

At a recent meeting one of the things the art team did was show off a scrolling screen of icons from each game. Far and away the largest set was LOTRO. I had never seen the sheer number of icons in the game displayed in one place at one time. I think players often hyper-focus on the thing they're looking at and miss the big picture. I know, as far as Icons are concerned, I had until I saw that. I would never want to be the person responsible for keeping track of all that.

Ah, ok. So at last they gave up...



...

Seriously, it's understandable that there are a lot, maybe too many icons in game. But I think it's no good excuse for me, who is playing a guardian with all these placeholders. I see buffs stacking up but they give me almost no information. This is where it starts to be game breaking, ... a bit. You have to know the gameplay of this class to really know what I mean.
It sounds like the art team is not the only one responsible for this situation. Thanks for this insight btw.
I think they should be granted the opportunity to take vengeance to the class developers that came up with all these fancy procs and effects.
Somethings needs to change here!

[Junafani]

Q1: We're getting revamps for Book 13, any plans to add new region content vs. just updating old regions?
A: [Budgeford] - There will be a small slice of new region content alongside the revamps for Update 13, and there are plans in the works for a full small region in the near future (but sometime after 13).
Q2: Which areas are being revamped for update 13?
A: [Budgeford] - We're hitting the North Downs, Trollshaws, and Misty Mountains with Update 13. North Downs has a lot of content already, and it's a great zone, but the quest flow and level range definitely need some love. Misty Mountains and Trollshaws are beautiful zones, but the quests are sparse and often difficult to find. We're hoping to address all of these issues during the revamps.

Update 13 seems awesome! If ND, Trollshaws and Misty Mountains are brought up to same quality as Moria, it looks like I have something to do for few months.

Q16: Are there currently any plans to (ever) create content for northern Mirkwood, Gladden Fields, the area south of Bree and other unused spaces that aren't close to the path of the Fellowship?
A: [MoL] – We have plans for areas that aren’t directly on the path of the main LotR story, but they’re prioritized below major events for now. We’ve strayed from the path of the Fellowship before and certainly will again, but the story is moving forward into interesting territory and we don’t want to miss that.

Are south of Bree would be awesome to see. Greenway is now cutoff between Breeland and Enedwaith.

Q7: Any chance to see the access to Ettenmoors possible buying some "Ettenmoors Pass" in the store and not only through VIP?
A: [HoarseDev] – Working on it.

I haven't really been playing Ettenmoors, but maybe I try now when I can use my main there!

Q13: Will Carn Dum et al (not the Rift I know about that), ToO be scaled in near future (2014/15)?
A: [JWbarry] – Carn Dum is not likely. It’s old, crufty, and huge, so it presents a lot of challenges that will take significant time to sort through and implement. ToO is more likely as it was built with scaling in mind. That said, there’s a bunch of work we like to put into instances when we scale them, and we’d like to do that cluster as a whole. There’s some reworking to be done in Dargnákh Unleashed and difficulty swings to be made in The Foundy, in addition to bugfix and polish passes through all the instances. While it is less time than making new ones, it is also generally less satisfying to the community as well. Having all instances available and relevant at cap is still something on the wishlist, but it’s not something we can commit to doing more of this year at this point.

What about Moria instances? I really like them! Go in, get loot (and those SWEET rep items that I can send to my alts!), kill stuff and look at that marvelous scenery! Other thing would be scaling up Lothlorien instances. They seem to be neglegted by player base currently.

[Moln]

Can you elaborate on what was meant by 'customizing bag size'? There have been many requests for craftable bags/more space, but this also sounds like you mean moving inventory slots from one bag to another, with the same maximum total of 90.

Also, I'm curious what happens to quests in progress when an area revamp hits. I have many characters all in Trollshaws, and if the update is soon enough to be discussed, I expect some of them will still be there.

[vodou]

can't say i am surprised by the dreadful outlook for this game based on the answers. fyi, you guys can't mask the lack of content you are putting out by answering a few more questions. i understand it may only have been "no" or "maybe" if you stuck to the most popular inquiries but at least you wouldn't appear foolish by making it seem like mail attachments or a moors catapult is actually content. i saw the writing on the wall well before these answers. many did as well and now more will. even the ardent supporters will start to see after a few more months of a few quests and nothing else. alting is your preferred endgame and you are trying to stop the bleeding from lost subs to drain whatever you can from this once magnificent game. maybe you make a dime or two from some new players and a few gullible older ones in the old areas but it will not last. once it dips bust out that "surprise" of a new class and race to get the really gullible back into the old areas and you have played your last card and this game dies early 2015 i wager

[Yula_the_Mighty]

Can you elaborate on what was meant by 'customizing bag size'? There have been many requests for craftable bags/more space, but this also sounds like you mean moving inventory slots from one bag to another, with the same maximum total of 90.

It is going to be moving slots between bags. I expect it to be a cross between the current design and the way housing chests, vaults and shared storage work.

[themannweb]

Q9: Are you planning a major Ettenmoors update during 2014?
A: [HoarseDev] – We’re presently working on shoring up some of the fundamentals (long overdue stat updates). We are also prototyping some new stuff. No promises, but I want to see if we can get catapults in there.

How about no.

[Rainothon]

Yeah, this looks about what is feasible to do with a skeleton crew. With all due respect for the crewmembers involved - I know you'll be working hard to deliver us quality content and features. I know that those smaller regions are going to be the best you can make. I just wish you had a bigger team.

Anyone with an interest in raiding who hasn't left by now, should be gone. Is that the effect Turbine is after then? Or is it merely collateral damage. Anyway it sucks to be a raider in this game and for once I'd like to see Turbine admit that. It's not going to change anything, but it would show empathy. Maybe that's 'not done' in the Boston area, gosh all those blizzards must really harden a person .

But what can I say? Solo casual gamer, likes crafting and housing, has a few alts? Well, the housing update better be good. I do think Turbine is doing my type of player a good service by using 2014 to update many older systems. But I see a lack of ambition, or more positively worded a clear grasp of what work a skeleton crew may accomplish. LI overhaul 'in the idea phase'? Come one! Throw some money at it, it needs it hard. Same for kinship: gear up, pedal on the metal with this! If 2014 is going to be all 'breadcrumbs' like this, that may also be the maximum that comes out of my wallet. It takes spending money to make money.

Something Turbine will never answer is how and to what extend all of this is or has been affected by the Tolkien - WB - ME enterprises lawsuits, or by the development of Infinity Crisis. I get that. There are things that may not be discussed with the outside world, as WB has shareholders and this nozzles many things. So here's to a smooth no-ripples Tolkien lawsuit. As much as I'd like to see the responsible persons suffer over that blasphemous, horrible LOTR one-armed bandit , I'd hate to see LOTRO suffer collateral damage over that.

Sapience, it looks like Kate Piaz likes to stick to her yearly letter frequency. How about increasing that frequency this year? As much as we all like hearing from you, her words make us feel important and special, she's the boss-type you know . As much as I love ideas and as much as I've learned over the years that when Turbine says 'we're thinking' there's actually a good chance something will indeed happen, 2014 calls for extra care in updating us on things that will come to be. And by all means leak some 2015 expansion concept art. I can live on breadcrumbs over 2014, but I need a good, strong meal in 2015. And I haven't even touched on the matter of second breakfast

Oh, and Sapience, since the team has many things in the idea phase, and you're likely including the Player Council in spouting ideas as well, how about opening (or relinking to existing) specific suggestion threads? I'm sure some of the community would love to relay their ideas for stuff like LI overhauls etc. And it would give the team a good starting point on current community wishes.

[Whiteberry_Laurelin]

Q12: Will Epic Battles be expanded to include more battles and/or size options?
A: [JWbarry] – We’re looking at locations and events within the roadmap for the rest of the year that would be suitable for new Epic Battles. We don’t anticipate any new sizes beyond the 4 we currently support.

Since I asked this question, I'd like to clarify that with "size" options I meant unlocking raid/FS/Small FS options in those that currently are limited to other sizes.

[Lunanera]

Very interesting, thank you!
But please, next time, instead of 40 "Are you planning to do XXX" questions (all with the same "no - not now - possibly in future" answers), ask a single one: "What (the hell - optional) are you working on?" ^_^

[Whiperandwake]

Am I missing something here? I thought the intent was to have new content every quarter? Or is that info not released yet? Revamp is not new content no matter how it is spun. Also I saw more "no" "not planning on it" and "we talked about it" then yes. Very disappointing. I can't believe that the majority of people would rather have some sort of BB then actually have instances and raids. Well to be honest the future of 2014 looks boring. I do have some alts that will enjoy the revamp providing that they don't ruin the classic feel of those areas (such as Dol Dinen, Giants Hall). Overall very disappointing.

that is because the producers letter was just clever marketing speech for "we are putting lotro into cruise control and HD was the last xpack

[Whiperandwake]

Agreed. It would be nice to move on. I know people are disappointed, and I myself am dismayed, but there's nothing to be done. Can we please just change the narrative, because months of downer negativity have been more than enough. Let's just move forward with what we have, and if some people need to take a break to go find other ways to satisfy their gaming needs, LotRO will still be here if/when they return.

yep nothing to be done , just like at level cap in lotro for the next year or two

[Whiperandwake]

wow OK so we dont get ANY new raids or instances and now you guys cant even be bothered to scale an older cluster??? just close up shop now and save yourselves the trouble

[Grimdi]

Well, mostly the usual evasive and vague answers and some confirmations of past statements. Nothing really new or surprising here.

Q5: What kinds of updates are you contemplating for enhanced housing? Will Mithril Coins be necessary for all these enhancements?
A: [HoarseDev] – Yup, we’re still cooking up some housing improvements. We want to weave some of them into the Kinship system so that they have a more tangible social impact.

If you don't bother answering the second part at all of the question why even include it. Well, the first part isn't really answered either ("what do you do?" - "Yes") so the whole thing could be ommitted.

Q8: Will there be a new PvP map?
A: [HoarseDev] – Not planned for any time in the near future.

Well, just a confirmation of past statements, nothing new.

Q9: Are you planning a major Ettenmoors update during 2014?
A: [HoarseDev] – We’re presently working on shoring up some of the fundamentals (long overdue stat updates). We are also prototyping some new stuff. No promises, but I want to see if we can get catapults in there.

Now while I'm not really a PvMP player this sounds like another idea that nobody ever asked for. What people want is balancing (beyond stats), performance and (at least some) better accessibility for non-veterans. Adding a completely new feature to a unstable and unbalanced system like Moors sounds like (yet another) recipe for disaster.

Q10: When can we expect new content in the form of a new multi-boss raid?
A: [JWbarry] – A new raid is not in the plans for 2014.

Again just confirmation of past statements, no surprise. But I guess the unwillingness of people to believe it warrants this.

Q12: Will Epic Battles be expanded to include more battles and/or size options?
A: [JWbarry] – We’re looking at locations and events within the roadmap for the rest of the year that would be suitable for new Epic Battles. We don’t anticipate any new sizes beyond the 4 we currently support.

As others have said, the question was likely about having more (existing) group sizes on more (existing) epic battles.

Q15: With the advent of the player up scaling for Epic Battles is it possible and being looked into to allow us to downscale and run other classic instance spaces without requiring the old instances to be redesigned and broken up thus allowing for the continued use of locks on the instances like Tower of Orthanc, Carn Dum, The Rift, Draigoch, Moria, DN etc?
A: [JWbarry] – Not currently. Downscaling presents a lot of different challenges than upscaling does. Upscaling we’re adding statistics to the character, downscaling we have to figure out how to not just add statistics, but what to do about additional skills that have been unlocked. Upscaling can tend to produce underpowered characters, while downscaling more often produces overpowered characters. Additionally, our instance scaling works by moving the instance level up and down. Expectation of how a certain type of space behaves and consistency in its ruleset is a very valuable thing.

Yeah, please before you consider more scaling mechanics consolidate the existing itemization schemes. The vastly different stat distributions of SoA, RoI and HD gear make upscaling ridiculous already.

Q19: Are there plans for a new craft?
A: [NLS] There’s not a plan for a new craft profession. However, we have discussed the possibility of allowing players to add additional crafting abilities to their character beyond the three that come with your profession.

Probably with an appropriate MC/TP cost ...

Q20: Will we see a Legendary item revamp this year?
A: [HoarseDev] – We’re in the ideas phase. It’s a maybe.

Sounds more like a "not anytime soon" to me, with "soon" = "before christmas". The proper time would have been together with the class revamps anyway.

Q28: When inspecting someone, you can no longer see their traits. Will this be rectified in the future?
A: [NLS] Unfortunately with the trait tree redesign, viewing another player’s equipped traits has gotten a lot more complicated. As a result, we don’t expect to enable this function.

Then at least remove the empty pages from the inspection window. Would it at least be possible to display the selected specialization and maybe total number of points spent somehow?

Q30: Why can’t dwarfs be wardens? Why can’t any race play any class?
A: [NLS] We’ve discussed the possibility of doing this in the past, but it’s not something we’re currently working on.

"Why is it this way?" - "No". Find the error in this.

Q31: Are there plans to remove all the old icon-placeholders & doppelgangers that are still used for buffs, items, jewelry etc?
A: [HoarseDev] – Icons are always… challenging. We are working on sorting a lot of this stuff out.

Are you kidding us? You've had close to 6 months for sorting this out now. I can understand having placeholders in Beta and even in the initial release, but 3 updates later this is a bad joke. And regarding crafting materials, using the previous tier for the placeholders just makes this even worse, at least use icons from stuff you don't find in the same region. Given that the lenghty QA process was used as excuse for delayed fixes to serious but simple problems like the BfE T1 FA item issue this situation is not acceptable.

Q36: Have you ever thought about using polls for the community to vote on what changes (be it large or details) they'd like to see?[/B]
A: [Sapience] We have in the past. Usually for minor things. The servers we added when we launched free to play were named based on a player poll. Riddermark was the top choice with 616. We may use polls again in the future for smaller questions like this one.

The question was about community influence on changes to the game (mechanics), not cosmetic/irrelevant stuff like names. And using Turbines past behavior the answer should be "not happening". Nice distraction though.

[Ilhsul]

So in lieu of a new expansion this is what we have to look forward to in 2014 instead?

I don't know any other MMO developer who is delivering so little. You can bet the good stuff will be monetised as much as possible too. Absolutely dire for those who don't like leveling alts.

[Brajkior]

For the love of god just give us some new raids. You're losing many players. We need something that tests our new skills and power we have. Or at least do something with mounted combat. I'd be great to see something to appeal to your raiding base.

I totaly gree with you, we need new raids, and improvements in PvP.
Also there sould be like before very hard raid with 100% drop chance for 1 or 2 armour/jewellery pieces (than getting armour piece reflects your skill and ability to cooperate in raid), and not some fast running repetitive instances where drop chance for some item is small but everyone can get it if runs instance for 200 - 300 times (getting armour that way doesnt reflect your skill but reflects only your stubbornes or luck).

In my opinion it would be great to in addition to etten to have some smaller map(s) where creeps and freeps have task to do. Like in MOBA games.
You can get some inspiration from moba games like heroes of order and chaos or similar.
You should make dynamic, relatively small and fast instanced map where you have clear goal. In this way PvP would be attractive and interesting.
This instanced battle arenas also could be made in that way that people from all servers (or at least from all servers from same language group) can be matched together to have one big poll of players.


Polish game engine and servers to avoid terrible lag in ettens.

And make game more chalenging, i do not enjoy lotro anymore because there is no lot of challange anymore, i can pull with my hunter more than 6 mobs and kill them easily and this is (at least for me) very bad thing.

[Jillymala]

The integrated graphics is going to be an issue for you. That said, I have lag in this game that I don't get in other MMOs, even when the graphic settings in those games are far better than what I use in Lotro. Lag is a complex creature and the end-user is potentially only part of the problem. These forums in particular seem to beat the drum of "end-user" issue, and ignore the contributions from anything else.

The only place I lag horrifically in any part of the world is Ettens. Normally even in larger raids (12/24) there are zero problems. I am not sure what makes our PvP lag so much harder for my pc then anything else I run but I do know a lot of us complain about it and some can't go because of it. I've never had lag like I do in this game in any other game I've played and I'm literally like 20 minutes from Turbine HQ so its not like I am bouncing game info from China or anything. Its annoying at best and I seriously hope they fix whats broken before throwing new problems (catapults) at an already frustrating one.

[WhiteTalpa]

Cool lots of interesting answers

[Whart]

I thought from previous posts that we were going to get some information about the housing updates, but again, there is no specific information. I honestly don't care what they do to kin houses--I want to know if we are getting the ability to place more items in individual houses or not, and which update in 2014 will give that ability to us. Please just answer the question.

And of course, disappointed that there don't seem to be any plans on the horizon to create any content of interest to non-solo players. I really want a reason to keep playing, but I play in groups, and I feel more and more like I'm not wanted here.

[Derthir]

Q15: With the advent of the player up scaling for Epic Battles is it possible and being looked into to allow us to downscale and run other classic instance spaces without requiring the old instances to be redesigned and broken up thus allowing for the continued use of locks on the instances like Tower of Orthanc, Carn Dum, The Rift, Draigoch, Moria, DN etc?
A: [JWbarry] – Not currently. Downscaling presents a lot of different challenges than upscaling does. Upscaling we’re adding statistics to the character, downscaling we have to figure out how to not just add statistics, but what to do about additional skills that have been unlocked. Upscaling can tend to produce underpowered characters, while downscaling more often produces overpowered characters. Additionally, our instance scaling works by moving the instance level up and down. Expectation of how a certain type of space behaves and consistency in its ruleset is a very valuable thing.

I do not see how overpowered characters is a problem. It would mainly allow people to go back and play with their friends who are lower level and still get some challenge out of it. How is slightly overpowered, at-level characters worse than godlike characters with level 95 stats?

You could just cap the level for each region at 2 levels above the highest enemy level for the region, and multiply all the stats by that level divided by the character's current level. I know that stat progression is not linear, though it was close until the exponential growth from 85 to 95, but it is certainly an improvement over 95s walking around helping level 30s. This would also help people who want to do all the quests and overlevel. They could be 30 levels above the region level by moria but it wouldn't matter, because they would still perform only slightly better than at-level characters in the region.



Some people might say just roll a new character to play with your friends and keep pace with them. That may work, but if you have many friends or kinmates at different levels, that becomes unfeasible very quickly.

I think that Guild Wars 2 did this system perfectly. If they can figure it out, then you guys can too! You could even get creative and set progressive stat caps for every 5 levels. You guys at Turbine are creative enough to come up with something.