Motivating Speech Change

[Gertes]

The animation length is ridiculous and yeah, just puts more pressure on the healers, I agree.

If you reactivate it within the 5min, you will not lose moral and the healers don't need to heal anything extra.

[Gorikon]

I've given the topic some thoughts. It seems the problem is that the old aura effect only affects your own group. Changing it to affect the other group(s) of your raid seems to be tricky. So I propose the following implementation:

- Motivating Speech is changed back to a toggle. Default ON, is NOT turned off by silence effects.
- Instead of being an aura, it would "pulse" each minute, bestowing/refreshing the 5 minutes buffs on everybody in vicinity. (No animation, except maybe some colored shockwave, like banners do.)
- Toggling off and on again would instantly bestow/refresh the buffs. No animation when toggling, very quick cooldown (0.1s).

Basically, everybody who stays within range would constantly have the buffs. Leaving range would not instantly dispell the buff (only when being out of range for five minutes). When someone needs the buff very quickly (e.g. after a rez), you'd have to do a quick toggle. (Only works without animation & short cooldown, else it wouldn't be quick.)

The only "downside" I see is that you would randomly buff people on landscape. Cannot imagine someone complaining about that.

[Gertes]

I've given the topic some thoughts. It seems the problem is that the old aura effect only affects your own group. Changing it to affect the other group(s) of your raid seems to be tricky. So I propose the following implementation:

- Motivating Speech is changed back to a toggle. Default ON, is NOT turned off by silence effects.
- Instead of being an aura, it would "pulse" each minute, bestowing/refreshing the 5 minutes buffs on everybody in vicinity. (No animation, except maybe some colored shockwave, like banners do.)
- Toggling off and on again would instantly bestow/refresh the buffs. No animation when toggling, very quick cooldown (0.1s).

Basically, everybody who stays within range would constantly have the buffs. Leaving range would not instantly dispell the buff (only when being out of range for five minutes). When someone needs the buff very quickly (e.g. after a rez), you'd have to do a quick toggle. (Only works without animation & short cooldown, else it wouldn't be quick.)

The only "downside" I see is that you would randomly buff people on landscape. Cannot imagine someone complaining about that.

I can imagine that this "could" result in performance issues, especially in something like the Moors. When you apply the buff every minute to everything in 80m.
To be fair this issue could also be there with the current implementation, but I guess it's still makes a difference if you use it manually or automatically, when it comes to overall number of casts.

[Gorikon]

I can imagine that this "could" result in performance issues, especially in something like the Moors. When you apply the buff every minute to everything in 80m.

Hm. If that's the case, limit the maximum targets to something between 15 and 20. IIRC Beorning heals and RK group bubble got a limit in that range because of performance reasons.

[theultimatekyle]

Capt is on the shelf. Wont play it. So sad.

Congrats, that's the point. All these changes suggest they want less captain's running around.

[Garan]

While I agree that this is a ridiculous change and totally unnecessary - why did they feel the need to make it raid wide but in the process make it a pain to remember to refresh? They should have just left it alone.

Anyway, you can use the Alerter plugin to easily set a reminder to keep the skill up all the time after you click it once to start the reminder. See the thread:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...ivating-Speech

[auximenes]

What a pain in the [donkey]. This is an anti-QoL change, which should be a developer no-no. You should never increase tedium and micro-managing.

[Once_of_Bree]

Definitely a backwards step, definitely a case of the tail wagging the dog. To balance some perceived issue in raids, spoil things for all players. Hopefully they will revert this change with next patch.

[Zaheer]

I think this is a step forward, they only need to increase it's duration in my opinion.

The reason is that it eliminated a very old bug that occurred to weapon swapping with the group. If the captain swapped from or to a weapon that had IDOME bonus in terms of stats, the 10% motivation speech would reset which caused the group to reset a chunk of vitality and x% morale upon swapping.

This also heavily increased lag on classes that had to weapon swap a lot for DPS.

Whilst it's acceptable within a group, it isn't when the captain is affects 24 people while he weapon swaps. This not only increases lag for the people playing with the captain, but also puts a heavy load onto the server.

I propose an increase in duration to 10-15 minutes.

[Omen_Kaizer]

100% agree with Zaheer, this is a functional gain for a QOL loss that can be cushioned in another patch. Raidwide good, no swap bug good, 5 min duration kinda bad.

This is also healthier for raid composition balance which will be even more important when there are 11 classes later this year. Just one less reason to need two captains per raid.

[Dunford]

I think this is a step forward, they only need to increase it's duration in my opinion.

The reason is that it eliminated a very old bug that occurred to weapon swapping with the group. If the captain swapped from or to a weapon that had IDOME bonus in terms of stats, the 10% motivation speech would reset which caused the group to reset a chunk of vitality and x% morale upon swapping.

This also heavily increased lag on classes that had to weapon swap a lot for DPS.

Whilst it's acceptable within a group, it isn't when the captain is affects 24 people while he weapon swaps. This not only increases lag for the people playing with the captain, but also puts a heavy load onto the server.

I propose an increase in duration to 10-15 minutes.

In my opinion, the correct fix to this condition is not to castrate an important captain skill with the latest mechanism, but to prevent the skill from resetting when weapon swapping.
Why penalize the entire class of players for one minor raid mechanism?
If motivating speech was again a toggle skill and weapons swapping did not affect it, you wouldn't have added lag.
I also am dubious that it is a 'heavy load on the server'.

What prevented a captain from re-toggling motivating speech ON when swapping weapons before this patch?

[Zaheer]

In my opinion, the correct fix to this condition is not to castrate an important captain skill with the latest mechanism, but to prevent the skill from resetting when weapon swapping.
Why penalize the entire class of players for one minor raid mechanism?
If motivating speech was again a toggle skill and weapons swapping did not affect it, you wouldn't have added lag.
I also am dubious that it is a 'heavy load on the server'.

What prevented a captain from re-toggling motivating speech ON when swapping weapons before this patch?

I don't see what the issue is, firstly yeah they could fix it that way by removing the Idome stat bonus from the legacy, but we kinda want the legacy to stay there as it is.


I don't see it as something penalizing, because motivation speech and IDoME used to be toggled/ activated all the time in the past. Besides, they sadly cannot do that as the ''IDOME stat change'' actually creates a different version of the IDOME we have without stat change. So weapon swapping and avoiding a reset is simply not possible.

It is actually a heavy load on the server, a lot of classes are weapon swapping and the server needs to calculate and update stats. So as you know, one LI contains a ton of stats and that all needs to be adjusted. Having a captain weapon swap and needing to recalculate the stats for 12 people is a pretty big thing, esp when u think about it that there's multiple raids running at the same time with all of them containing captains who do swap a lot.


Theres no other way, either remove the IDOME stat bonus, or make the buff a duration buff.

I would go with the second, since it's just another buff with a duration in that case and that's no problem for me to keep track of, because as a captain you're doing that all the time. Besides I played in the days you had to refresh that & tactics buffs constantly.



So increase the duration to 10-15min and get used to it imo, cuz you cannot be slacking as a cappy imo when ur actually trying to optimize ur group it's efficiency.

[Baelrog]

Just replying to this thread to weigh in- I hate this change. Still levelling captain, and it's very strange that a permanent aura-style buff that you cast once and forget about is now on a 5 minute timer with no real explanation or change in the ability.

Changes based on raid performance or representation need to be balanced against the other activities that players undertake - solo landscape and questing seems to be a huge part of the game, and this change is a huge negative in that space. If the buff needs to be raidwide for representation reasons, that's a reason to nerf the power of the buff, not turn it into a "push this button every 5 minutes" skill. Dial the morale bonus down to 7.5%, 5%, 2.5% or whatever it needs to be to allow it to remain as a toggle-once skill so it can remain that way.

[Joedangod]

Changes based on raid performance or representation need to be balanced against the other activities that players undertake - solo landscape and questing seems to be a huge part of the game, and this change is a huge negative in that space. If the buff needs to be raidwide for representation reasons, that's a reason to nerf the power of the buff, not turn it into a "push this button every 5 minutes" skill. Dial the morale bonus down to 7.5%, 5%, 2.5% or whatever it needs to be to allow it to remain as a toggle-once skill so it can remain that way.

The power of the skill wasn't the issue they were addressing.

Due to a certain legacy every single time a player weapon swaps on Captain it forces all group members around them to need their stats recalculated, now, some players found a way to make this less of an issue by jumping through a series of hoops to make the legacy in question not alter your stats but such an approach isn't really acceptable for everyone.

Not sure why you think this is a raid-exclusive problem. It is a problem in literally any content involving a Captain and at least one other player. SSG almost certainly weighed up the pros and cons of changing it from a toggle and decided that this was the best approach, admittedly the duration is a tad short but I imagine they might patch it to be a more suitable 15-30 minutes at a later date.

[Omen_Kaizer]

Pretty much to summarize for Vastin. Either people hate it and want it reverted, or they like it but want the duration extended. Ain't nobody like 5 minutes.

[Hephburz-2]

There is no reason for it to be 5 minutes; I can understand the potential for people looking to abuse this, by just having a captain standing by to buff a 6man or buff people in the ettenmoors and then they can just walk around with the buff (which is often what you saw pre-95, where people would join a Captain just to get motivating speech & tactics buffs which lasted for 30minutes back then), which is why I agree it shouldn't be an overly long period of time, but 5 minutes is far too short, especially when we have 20+ minute boss fights in the game. Furthermore, I am not at all understanding the necessity to give the skill a 1 minute cooldown... Do you know how annoying it will become to rebuff the raid, mid-fight, and then have someone die, and then you have to wait 45s-minute to rebuff them, they could very well end up dying again before they get a chance to be rebuffed (whereas they might've survived had they had the extra morale).
*And before anyone says anything about that last point not potentially being relevant at this level cap with the current content we have, and with how much morale we are able to get up to, sure, that may be the case, but it won't be the case come a new level cap*.



5minutes with 1minute cooldown is a no.
10minutes with a 10second cooldown, yes please.

[TobiasEstForte]

I wrote this is another thread, but as well as the animation being long the buff is applied after the animation rather than at usage. Why was that changed?

[ertr]

It is actually a heavy load on the server, a lot of classes are weapon swapping and the server needs to calculate and update stats. So as you know, one LI contains a ton of stats and that all needs to be adjusted. Having a captain weapon swap and needing to recalculate the stats for 12 people is a pretty big thing, esp when u think about it that there's multiple raids running at the same time with all of them containing captains who do swap a lot.

That is a very good argument for removing weapon swapping in combat. Not for making Motivating Speech more cumbersome to use.

[theultimatekyle]

I wrote this is another thread, but as well as the animation being long the buff is applied after the animation rather than at usage. Why was that changed?

That's to prevent you from cutting the animation with an immediate skill like kick. They want us to wait through the whole animation

[Dunford]

I don't see what the issue is, firstly yeah they could fix it that way by removing the Idome stat bonus from the legacy, but we kinda want the legacy to stay there as it is.


I don't see it as something penalizing, because motivation speech and IDoME used to be toggled/ activated all the time in the past. Besides, they sadly cannot do that as the ''IDOME stat change'' actually creates a different version of the IDOME we have without stat change. So weapon swapping and avoiding a reset is simply not possible.

It is actually a heavy load on the server, a lot of classes are weapon swapping and the server needs to calculate and update stats. So as you know, one LI contains a ton of stats and that all needs to be adjusted. Having a captain weapon swap and needing to recalculate the stats for 12 people is a pretty big thing, esp when u think about it that there's multiple raids running at the same time with all of them containing captains who do swap a lot.


Theres no other way, either remove the IDOME stat bonus, or make the buff a duration buff.

I would go with the second, since it's just another buff with a duration in that case and that's no problem for me to keep track of, because as a captain you're doing that all the time. Besides I played in the days you had to refresh that & tactics buffs constantly.



So increase the duration to 10-15min and get used to it imo, cuz you cannot be slacking as a cappy imo when ur actually trying to optimize ur group it's efficiency.

Presumably the issue with IDOME and Motivating Speech has been present since before this latest change. The only difference now is that it is raid wide. This fix throws the baby out with the bathwater by imposing a worse condition than the problem it is supposed to fix.

I won't comment further on heavy server lag since I have no data to support or refute my statement.

If it must be turned into a duration skill, then reverting back to the original 30 minutes would at least not make the situation worse than it was 15 years ago when I first started playing the captain.

I do not concur with your 'just get used to it' comment. It is a bad mechanism and should be reviewed and corrected. No player of any class should have to 'get used to' a poorly implemented change that adds unnecessary tedium to class play.

[Zaheer]

Presumably the issue with IDOME and Motivating Speech has been present since before this latest change. The only difference now is that it is raid wide. This fix throws the baby out with the bathwater by imposing a worse condition than the problem it is supposed to fix.

I won't comment further on heavy server lag since I have no data to support or refute my statement.

If it must be turned into a duration skill, then reverting back to the original 30 minutes would at least not make the situation worse than it was 15 years ago when I first started playing the captain.

I do not concur with your 'just get used to it' comment. It is a bad mechanism and should be reviewed and corrected. No player of any class should have to 'get used to' a poorly implemented change that adds unnecessary tedium to class play.

I do agree, but I don't think SSG can make any of these implementations.

hence I state that we just gotta get used to it.

[Felisleo]

Make two versions of the Motivating Speach Skill. The first thats applied to the Captain ONLY and which is a constant buff as we had prior to U30. This can be used for Solo and Landscape.

The second which is fellowship or raid wide one that needs to be re-applied every five minutes. One skill automatically disabling the other when activated.


You could also give the Captains back their 10% damage mark.. 10% for Captain and 5% for Fellowship, but guess that requires more work to impliment.

[HerrDave]

Just chipping in, this change is so clunky that it's made me want to re-roll as a Guardian

I'm really not enjoying the Captain these days

[Gerelus]

The other aspect that seems to be missing from this thread, is that a change imposed to "balance" a raid issue, has absolutely panned the casual or landscape players and those who do not raid. It has been counter intuitive and damaging to everyone's experience, most likely having the greatest detrimental effect on the people who for whom it never was or would have been an issue - but it certainly is now

[Zaheer]

The other aspect that seems to be missing from this thread, is that a change imposed to "balance" a raid issue, has absolutely panned the casual or landscape players and those who do not raid. It has been counter intuitive and damaging to everyone's experience, most likely having the greatest detrimental effect on the people who for whom it never was or would have been an issue - but it certainly is now

I think it's kind of mentioned indirectly here, while ''casuals'' aren't referred to directly.

The changes are inherently good, but the duration is the worst change they could've made and just is a poor overall player experience.

But I am working hard on a major feedback topic appointed to the devs regarding some cappy feedback & content feedback, I'll share some of my views and it will be open so people can leave constructive feedback.