Bullroarer Update 30.3 - Early Beta 1 - CLOSED

[SingularityNow]

That said, I'm working with the team to do a better job of not doing what has been done in the past, learning from our mistakes, supporting our investments, etc. To that end, three of those things on the list are being actively worked on for U31. U32 will probably care some of those forward as well, and at least one of them is slated for U33. So, things are changing, but they haven't yet changed.

Regarding working on not doing what has been done in the past, that's the big fear here with those like me not eager to adopt. We've been through this with Vastin before. It starts with a groundswell of support for a change and Vastin steps in. The hero arrives! There's a lot of early communication as things are developed and then Beta 1 arrives. We're unhappy, ask for changes. Beta 2 arrives. Nominal changes at best with the promise of more interating post-live. Nothing ever comes of it. Multiple call outs for help go unresponded to. Most recent example are the pvp changes post-28.2.

This doesn't feel any different from that. Looking forward to what Beta 2 comes with, then we'll revisit this process.

[Fegefeuer]

I'd point out that "developed" with the community is very different from "open development." I'd also point out that using any Assassin's Creed game as an example of either of those feels like a bit of a stretch. I'll admit I'm not super ensconced in that community, but the level of engagement we're doing right here on these features is a lot higher than my understanding of what Ubi does for AC games. They tend to show things pretty late, which is fine and fair, that's generally worked out for them.

The reason Ubisoft can do this, it's because they earned reputation. There was a time when they released AC games with many bugs and they were critized but when they released Origins, they got back that lost respect. SSG doesn't have this level of reputation right now, it was lost long ago, most likely at around post Mordor times when black keys were introduced. Lotro reputation was hurt before, but post Mordor it started to go downfall much quicker.

You could compare better with Blizzard, who was very respected and they try to get again that good reputation, and it seems they are doing relatively well with Shadowlands, but there are too many dissappointments with them too. Last I read about them is that massive amounts of players are switching to FFXIV. There was a time when Blizzard was synonym of quality, people thought that no matter what they release, it will always be good, and it was for a long time... but not anymore it seems.

You didn't say anything about Warcraft 3 Reforged, though, it would have been interesting. Since it is proof that frustrated people should be treated with concern.

At no moment I said that anything should be open development. Open development sounds like people outside the company participates, like in open source stuff. This is not what I mean. I mean consulting the community before taking the step on developing a new system, so you don't waste your time creating a system that the community could potentially hate.

[Joedangod]

To that end, three of those things on the list are being actively worked on for U31. U32 will probably care some of those forward as well, and at least one of them is slated for U33. So, things are changing, but they haven't yet changed.

Well now I have my fingers crossed for LUA updates being one of the things already attached to an update.

[Harvain]

Well now I have my fingers crossed for LUA updates being one of the things already attached to an update.

The 3 things will be Missions (as it is ongoing and for the foreseeable future a key feature LOTRO will use), PvMP (it is getting things before, with and after U31) and then the unknown returning Mechanic with U31 which most likely will be the Allegiance System.

[Joedangod]

The 3 things will be Missions (as it is ongoing and for the foreseeable future a key feature LOTRO will use), PvMP (it is getting things before, with and after U31) and then the unknown returning Mechanic with U31 which most likely will be the Allegiance System.

Yeah, I was more eyeing the U33 item. Been developing a bunch of class tools lately so would be nice if the enemy/ally effect tracking stuff could get some polish/fixes/reworks.

[ShireDweller]

The hope is that we'll have exactly the kind of "clear, thorough, and step-by step description of the LI conversion process"! We're also hoping we can make the process itself relatively straightforward, so that it's easy enough that players can engage with it just by playing.

Thank you!

[Forgotten_Legend]

i'll be honest here. I'm afraid that the new system will INCREASE grind in some ways, like how Essence Armour increased grind for acquiring and improving armour. it seems like Turbine misunderstood the player's desire for "gear that improves with your character," which is what we asked for before the first expansion. you (EDIT 2: Turbine's successor SSG) are currently requiring us to buy new gear as we level up, and then gear up the gear, because the gear is worthless without slotting upgrades. now you're doing the same thing to Legendary weapons and class items. i don't want to have to grind out slotted-upgrades to be able to keep playing. Legendary weapons are supposed to be one-time deals: i earn a legendary weapon, and then i upgrade it through XP, nothing else. now, you're telling me that not only do i have to grind out upgrades that i have to slot, but that the upgrades become useless as i level up and that i have to replace them by grinding out higher level content.

the essence armour (way back at level 100 in Gondor) essentially multiplied the grind for my gear by 10x. it practically made me quit playing for years. i've logged in occasionally to continue the story, but just don't feel motivated to continue past Minis Tirith because of the gear grind. i can't even call it a treadmill anymore, because at least with a treadmill you can measure progress in minutes. with the essence system, you can't measure it in weeks of 40 hour + grinding, and i'm afraid the the new legendary item grind will be worse. i don't want to have to kill 20,000 wolfs to get one upgrade for my weapon! i don't want to have to kill 100 wolfs for one upgrade for my weapon! i don't want to have to re-do the same instance 100 times to get one upgrade for my weapon! i should be able to earn enough barter stuff to gain an upgrade in less than 30 minutes, no matter the game mode. yes. i do understand that i'm referring to rewards, but they're very tightly related to the LI system, and i shouldn't have to spend 3 months of full-time playing (40+ hours a week) to be able to stay geared for my level. when i level up one level, my character should feel more powerful, for example, by doing a noticeable amount of more damage / healing etcetera. i spent tens of thousands of LOTRO points (mostly earned from VIP) upgrading my current weapons, just to try to keep up during my low-play times, because the formulas made my weapons weaker as i levelled up, meaning that with no change to the weapon, it did LESS damage if i leveled up one level.

EDIT: Having expressed my fears and frustrations about gear grind, i must say that i AM looking forward to seeing the future of this system, as you've clearly indicated that we're only previewing PART of the new system. i really hope it improves the experience overall, and hopefully reduces grind as well.

[Harvain]

i'll be honest here. I'm afraid that the new system will INCREASE grind in some ways, like how Essence Armour increased grind for acquiring and improving armour. it seems like Turbine has misunderstood the player's desire for "gear that improves with your character," which is what we asked for before the first expansion. you (turbine) are currently requiring us to buy new gear as we level up, and then gear up the gear, because the gear is worthless without slotting upgrades. now you're doing the same thing to Legendary weapons and class items. i don't want to have to grind out slotted-upgrades to be able to keep playing. Legendary weapons are supposed to be one-time deals: i earn a legendary weapon, and then i upgrade it through XP, nothing else. now, you're telling me that not only do i have to grind out upgrades that i have to slot, but that the upgrades become useless as i level up and that i have to replace them by grinding out higher level content.

the essence armour (way back at level 100 in Gondor) essentially multiplied the grind for my gear by 10x. it practically made me quit playing for years. i've logged in occasionally to continue the story, but just don't feel motivated to continue past Minis Tirith because of the gear grind. i can't even call it a treadmill anymore, because at least with a treadmill you can measure progress in minutes. with the essence system, you can't measure it in weeks of 40 hour + grinding, and i'm afraid the the new legendary item grind will be worse. i don't want to have to kill 20,000 wolfs to get one upgrade for my weapon! i don't want to have to kill 100 wolfs for one upgrade for my weapon! i don't want to have to re-do the same instance 100 times to get one upgrade for my weapon! i should be able to earn enough barter stuff to gain an upgrade in less than 30 minutes, no matter the game mode. yes. i do understand that i'm referring to rewards, but they're very tightly related to the LI system, and i shouldn't have to spend 3 months of full-time playing (40+ hours a week) to be able to stay geared for my level. when i level up one level, my character should feel more powerful, for example, by doing a noticeable amount of more damage / healing etcetera. i spent tens of thousands of LOTRO points (mostly earned from VIP) upgrading my current weapons, just to try to keep up during my low-play times, because the formulas made my weapons weaker as i levelled up, meaning that with no change to the weapon, it did LESS damage if i leveled up one level.

EDIT: Having expressed my fears and frustrations about gear grind, i must say that i AM looking forward to seeing the future of this system, as you've clearly indicated that we're only previewing PART of the new system. i really hope it improves the experience overall, and hopefully reduces grind as well.

Just to make a correction. Turbine is no longer involved with LOTRO. They are SSG (Standing Stone Games).

We don't fully know how the System will fully work yet as of the end of the First Preview which was rough, had various issues and SSG hadn't even given us any form of details of how we would obtain the Currencies we'll eventually need.

They did discuss such on Friday September 10th on the +Cord of the Rings that there will be a variety of ways to get such and we will have a central location, a Library in Rivendell, which will have all available Traceries there to Barter for their various Currencies.

It's wait and see for how it is going to shake out.

[Forgotten_Legend]

Just to make a correction. Turbine is no longer involved with LOTRO. They are SSG (Standing Stone Games).

yeah, old habits die hard. Can you tell i've been around since the beginning of LOTRO? there is a reason why i mentioned them, even though a lot of the devs came over to SSG after WB bought Turbine way back when. the reason has to do with Turbine being the name of the studio (even though it's basically the same people) when the LI's were introduced in Mines of Moria, the first expansion way back when. this revamp wasn't announced until after SSG formed and got away from WB. it's also a way of allowing that SSG is listening to us more than Turbine did.

We don't fully know how the System will fully work yet as of the end of the First Preview which was rough, had various issues and SSG hadn't even given us any form of details of how we would obtain the Currencies we'll eventually need.

They did discuss such on Friday September 10th on the +Cord of the Rings that there will be a variety of ways to get such and we will have a central location, a Library in Rivendell, which will have all available Traceries there to Barter for their various Currencies.

It's wait and see for how it is going to shake out.

hence my first edit that's included in your post...

[Braer]

Just to make a correction. Turbine is no longer involved with LOTRO. They are SSG (Standing Stone Games).

We don't fully know how the System will fully work yet as of the end of the First Preview which was rough, had various issues and SSG hadn't even given us any form of details of how we would obtain the Currencies we'll eventually need.

They did discuss such on Friday September 10th on the +Cord of the Rings that there will be a variety of ways to get such and we will have a central location, a Library in Rivendell, which will have all available Traceries there to Barter for their various Currencies.

It's wait and see for how it is going to shake out.

It's still the same Turbine modus operandi just with some extra Daybreak flair. Well not exactly, now the game has it's first dedicate producer.

He's still got to deal with someone else taking a significant portion of the team away from Lotro to work on DDO.

So it's not really a case of wait and see, because the carpet pulling date is likely set in stone already. We can predict the RUSH to get as much done as usual but until we have dedicated games systems engineers devoted to each game it's not likely to change. But then do we get Vastin or does DDO? I horrifying proposition.

The General Errors throughout the live stream wasn't a great first view but then we are growing used them on Live if we venture into the later reaches of the game.

The really significant and refreshing change was we were getting it straight from the horse's mouth, rather than an obviously misunderstood evaluation by another, hidden away in "Articles". An echo back to the early days of the game's development.

[Raninia]

He's still got to deal with someone else taking a significant portion of the team away from Lotro to work on DDO.

I've seen this vaguely mentioned before, and while I can't speak for the past, there's no "significant portion of the team" that DDO is going to take from LOTRO. We have a handful of folks who are on loan from DDO atm, and the studio also has folks who are shared between the two. But the bulk of the team is staying on LOTRO, as they've been for a long while.

[Spanferkelextrakt]

google translate:

in the end, with li-2.0 we get the system that we were promised back then with the add-on from moria: a legendary weapon that will keep us going for the rest of the game. the reality then looked completely different back then ...

but i am sure that we will now have a system that will give most players a better start. of course I assume that not everything will work smoothly - but what the heck? then it will be cleaned up over time.
ssg has to carry and iron out the old burdens and errors in programming from back then. And I think that alone shouldn't be easy. for my part, however, i have the feeling that with ssg there is finally a team at lotro who are passionate about the game and especially interested in it.


i'm looking forward to starting over with the brawler and then earning a new weapon at the entrance to moria at the age of 50.

****************************** ******

german original:

im endeffekt bekommen wir nun mit li-2.0 das system, dass uns damals mit dem addon von moria versprochen wurde: eine legendäre waffe, die uns den rest des spiels bekleiten wird. die realität sah dann damals völlig anders aus...

ich bin aber sicher, dass wir nun ein system bekommen werden, dass den meisten spielern einen besseren einstieg bieten wird. natürlich gehe ich davon aus, dass nicht alles reibungslos funktionieren wird - aber, was solls? dann wird es eben mit der zeit bereinigt.
ssg hat die altlasten und fehler in der programierung von damals zu tragen und auszubügeln. und ich denke, dass alleine düfte nicht einfach sein. ich für meinen teil habe aber das gefühl, dass mit ssg endlich ein team an lotro sitzt, die mit herzblut und vor allem interesse am spiel dabei sind.


ich freu mich drauf, mit dem brawler von vorne dann anzufangen und mir am eingang von moria dann mit 50 eine neue waffe zu verdienen.

[Braer]

I've seen this vaguely mentioned before, and while I can't speak for the past, there's no "significant portion of the team" that DDO is going to take from LOTRO. We have a handful of folks who are on loan from DDO atm, and the studio also has folks who are shared between the two. But the bulk of the team is staying on LOTRO, as they've been for a long while.

But perhaps Vastin will be on the move? Significant in a what they bring to Lotro not rears on seats per say. We don't have the kind of transparency to really judge ofc but I'll totally change my view of Vastin if you tell me he's been responsible for crafting these past several years. And I might change my mind on the crafting engineer if the players had been listened too, rather than try proving their worth with innovation every tier that only achieves confusion and/or disappointment. X
But you can't listen those who say crafting isn't worth doing because it's still vital at times. Literally saves some class builds, so long as some items are not superseded by a store version ofc.

[Nevyn55]

I agree, our communication around this hasn't been enough. Part of this is we bit off more than we could chew, and a lot of work means that it's harder to get everything communicated effectively. Part of it is we don't have the bandwidth to do all the communication we should do, and certainly not enough to do as much as we'd like to. Part of it is we haven't done stuff like this in a while - this is a BR, but it's a helluva lot bigger than BRs we've done in the recent past, at least - and doing stuff like this requires practice. So it sucks that we dropped the ball here, and I totally take the blame for that - I'm taking notes on this for the future, because I actually think this was a pretty positive process overall. We premiered some pretty big changes to players, we've been getting a lot of really good feedback, and while some folks are falling in the "Why did you do any of this at all" camp, most folks seem to be engaging with it and seeing the potential. Now, it's on us to get more folks onboard, to respond to that feedback - particularly in-game - and get this system where it needs to be. A lot of that is gonna happen before the revamp goes live, but we know that our job won't end there. You're right, taking feedback is indeed a job, and we're working on getting better at it.

I understand the historical pessimism around changes and feedback, and I get that there's a lot of folks who are jaded by it. That's fine, your feelings about it are valid, and I'm not interested in telling you otherwise. My job is to make sure that stuff happens, and happens consistently. It's one of the reasons why I was brought onboard to help. I can't promise that everything will happen as fast as folks would like - hell, I can't promise it'll happen as fast as we would like - but I can promise that we'll be doing a lot of iteration. We understand that we need to spend more time listening, more time testing, and more time iterating, and we're doing the work behind the scenes to make progress on those things. They're not outwardly visible - but at some point I'd like to talk about them, once we have a better sense of how they are or aren't working - but they're happening. You don't have to trust us, but you do have to wait.

To address some of the more specific concerns here:

We're gonna continue tweaking traceries. We're moving really fast on that stuff right now - which is why the documentation isn't as specific as we'd like - and I expect more changes to keep happening. Again, changes will keep happening even once things are live.

The grind concerns have been heard loud and clear, and we're hoping that once more of the sources of traceries and enhancement runes show up - some should already be in, afaik - y'all will have a better sense of how things will look and can give us more actionable feedback where it's not working right.

Is it possible to, say, color code the name of the class tracery/legacy/whatever so that it coincides with the color of the specialization tree? Example: an ability or buff that is from the red tree is printed in red, from blue, blue, etc. Generic abilities would remain in white. All this might help in easier identification and recognition.

[Amarthwen]

Greetings!

I do not like "socket LI" together with "legacy essences" in principle, in any form, as an idea. If earlier I had to add 4-6 crystals and 30-40 scrolls to upgrade LI, now I have to throw away legacy essences and grind new ones from zero with each expansion. I'm not sure that I want to play content 130+, content 130- can be played without Gundabad. I have bought all the latest add-ons as the ultimate fan bundles. Now, for the first time, I doubt whether I need a new expansion at all. Now I need to throw away not only the gear, but also everything that is inserted into LI. Every expansion. For each character.

I am disappointed with this revamp. For beginners, it may and will be easier at first. But later it will be hard for everyone.

I have over 20 characters, 14 of them 130 or 120+. I simply don’t have that much time to make good LIs for everyone in new conditions.

New LI system is not interesting for me. Could you please add craft weapons to all craft tiers as it was long ago before Gondor?

[NailFelagund]

I have over 20 characters, 14 of them 130 or 120+. I simply don’t have that much time to make good LIs for everyone in new conditions.

Who does?

[wispsong]

Greetings!

I do not like "socket LI" together with "legacy essences" in principle, in any form, as an idea. If earlier I had to add 4-6 crystals and 30-40 scrolls to upgrade LI, now I have to throw away legacy essences and grind new ones from zero with each expansion. I'm not sure that I want to play content 130+, content 130- can be played without Gundabad. I have bought all the latest add-ons as the ultimate fan bundles. Now, for the first time, I doubt whether I need a new expansion at all. Now I need to throw away not only the gear, but also everything that is inserted into LI. Every expansion. For each character.

I am disappointed with this revamp. For beginners, it may and will be easier at first. But later it will be hard for everyone.

I have over 20 characters, 14 of them 130 or 120+. I simply don’t have that much time to make good LIs for everyone in new conditions.

New LI system is not interesting for me. Could you please add craft weapons to all craft tiers as it was long ago before Gondor?

But this is the beauty of it. New players/characters do NOT have to make up all these scrolls/crystals to be viable in end game. Everybody starts at the same level once the new cap is reached. And then hopefully a reset.

Again this is how I understand it.

I have for a long time asked to get normal weapons/class items but it doesn't seem this will ever happen. I also would love to get rid of the essence system, just an additional grind on top of the gear grind.

[Kehleyr_SSG]

Closing this thread in favor of the new feedback thread:

Bullroarer Update 30.3 - Beta 2