PvMP Update and Changes

[Snowlock]

Based on the feedback in this thread, I am working on the following for next week's Bullroarer:

- After further review, only Guardians and Champions have skill melee range increases. Instead of bumping all the creeps up to 5.2m range we are bumping Warleaders and Reavers up, and leaving the other classes at 3.5m for the moment. The better fix is to allow a melee range increase corruption, but that something that may happen in the future.
- One shotters are being added to guard the interior of Glan Vraig
- I am either going to try and fix the backdoors, or remove them altogether.

Remove. Can't be fixed, don't want them fixed. The use of a keep should have an opportunity cost. They can be used as a place of defense, but if you stay there too long, it should become a trap. Or if your enemy is taking it, it should become a gauntlet you have to run to participate in its defense. Backdoors obviate both of these cases.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

Remove. Can't be fixed, don't want them fixed. The use of a keep should have an opportunity cost. They can be used as a place of defense, but if you stay there too long, it should become a trap. Or if your enemy is taking it, it should become a gauntlet you have to run to participate in its defense. Backdoors obviate both of these cases.

there's an even finer point to be made on WHY backdoors are awful: they are a point of ABSOLUTE safety. in fact they are the most absolute of all safe point in the game, even more so than 1-shotters. There is no defensive gradient. its just insta-safe.


It doesn't matter how much force or skill you bring to the fight, any and all progress made will be stopped dead in its tracks at the backdoor, which heavily disincentivises even trying to fight at all.... might as well just turn around and return to your nearest point of absolute safety (GV/Grams in relation to TR/LUG respectively).

The action has become less around fighting your enemy and more about picking off the stragglers from their retreat, as shown in Consistentrager's video. Fights are to be avoided at all costs.

[J-Moneyforever]

Based on the feedback in this thread, I am working on the following for next week's Bullroarer:

- After further review, only Guardians and Champions have skill melee range increases. Instead of bumping all the creeps up to 5.2m range we are bumping Warleaders and Reavers up, and leaving the other classes at 3.5m for the moment. The better fix is to allow a melee range increase corruption, but that something that may happen in the future.
- One shotters are being added to guard the interior of Glan Vraig
- I am either going to try and fix the backdoors, or remove them altogether.

If removing backdoors is on the table I think the overwhelming majority of PvPers would prefer that option. I don't know how much it's been mentioned either but keep NPCs providing semi-viable protection might generate some slightly more strategic gameplay. As it is right now they're basically just fodder for defeat responses.

[Snowlock]

there's an even finer point to be made on WHY backdoors are awful: they are a point of ABSOLUTE safety. in fact they are the most absolute of all safe point in the game, even more so than 1-shotters. There is no defensive gradient. its just insta-safe.


It doesn't matter how much force or skill you bring to the fight, any and all progress made will be stopped dead in its tracks at the backdoor, which heavily disincentivises even trying to fight at all.... might as well just turn around and return to your nearest point of absolute safety (GV/Grams in relation to TR/LUG respectively).

The action has become less around fighting your enemy and more about picking off the stragglers from their retreat, as shown in Consistentrager's video. Fights are to be avoided at all costs.

I don't disagree with this at all. I'm hoping through the dialog we give Fantus the greater overall picture of the weaknesses of the map and its impacts on our gameplay. By weakening the castle defense gameplay through reducing efficacy of defending npcs, the back doors, the autoflips, and also removing the attractiveness of objectives scattering us around the map (quest rewards) we are building into the map the meta (most efficient tactic available) of the zerg herd. If there's nothing else to do, then we all just log in, map to the nearest spawn point and camp it until the first few players are forced to flee the spot and the rest of the herd follows and the stampede takes us to the next nearest point of safety which is often a castle back door but it could also be a rez circle or Grams/GV. The problem is the meta, but the meta is created by a larger issue. The map is broken.

[Hilawolf]

What about the delving doors? I think DG and OR are in combat, never underestimate the drive to shuffle. I am looking forward to the shortest shuffle ever, ROP delving to Lugz rez.

[ConsistentRager]

What about the delving doors? I think DG and OR are in combat, never underestimate the drive to shuffle. I am looking forward to the shortest shuffle ever, ROP delving to Lugz rez.

DG and OR are usable in combat but none of the Outpost doors are usable in combat including the ROP door.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

I don't disagree with this at all. I'm hoping through the dialog we give Fantus the greater overall picture of the weaknesses of the map and its impacts on our gameplay. By weakening the castle defense gameplay through reducing efficacy of defending npcs, the back doors, the autoflips, and also removing the attractiveness of objectives scattering us around the map (quest rewards) we are building into the map the meta (most efficient tactic available) of the zerg herd. If there's nothing else to do, then we all just log in, map to the nearest spawn point and camp it until the first few players are forced to flee the spot and the rest of the herd follows and the stampede takes us to the next nearest point of safety which is often a castle back door but it could also be a rez circle or Grams/GV. The problem is the meta, but the meta is created by a larger issue. The map is broken.

Highly disagree with removing keeps as defensive fallbacks.... they should absolutely be central locations that are difficult to take with strong NPCs at their core such that a weaker force isn't forced to fall back to Gramsfoot / GV when they are losing.


There needs to be a defensive gradient provided by keeps, perhaps with some minor objectives (like the old South TA Bridge / West TA Bridge) surrounding the central locations as forward points of advancement.


Backdoors have no gradient... its just an immediate leap into absolute safety.

[Starkorm]

Are we getting flags back on the bridges as well?

[-Aran-]

Some mechanical changes may be considered.

1)Disable the use of backdoors while in a fight. It makes the action very boring.
2)Need arrangement to "renown/infamy" gained after killing an opponent.(for leechers)
3)Relocation of Orc/Elf camps(maybe the old place)
4)Rework to Ettenmoors Buffs(for example, Fragment of Mordírith's Crown)
5)New places. (Maybe riverside fishing camps.)

[Skoch]

While I'm sure this will get mixed reactions, I'd like to propose disabling heal target forwarding in pvmp environments only. In-terms of gameplay, its one of the laziest and cheapest ways to heal whatever is being targeted by an enemy player. You don't have to even pay attention, just select an enemy dps player and spam heals (literally just, tab, 1, 2, 3, repeat) . I'm guilty of doing this and find no real lasting pleasure in doing so; However, I'm still advocating its use in PvE situations. In PvP I feel it's detrimental to higher level gameplay opportunities and learning. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for reading and working on pvp for us, we've needed love for a looooong time @Fants_SSG

[Nindrillion]

Based on the feedback in this thread, I am working on the following for next week's Bullroarer:


- I am either going to try and fix the backdoors, or remove them altogether.

Remove them please

[Snowlock]

Highly disagree with removing keeps as defensive fallbacks....

I didn't say that, did I?

[CHEBURASHKA]

@Fants_SSG
1. Creep utility problem
When it comes to balance, the most crucial issue, in my opinion, is FIXING CREEP UTILITY. Changing stats is a good thing but the core of PvP problems (both for group and solo pvp) lies in the discrepancy between freep and creep utility.
That’s why I can’t stress enough how important this point is:

- Freeps have access to ridiculous levels of utility, Creeps have nothing but CC.
Creep Buff/Debuff options are hilariously garbage when compared to Freep utility, including Attack Duration debuffs/buffs, Raw damage debuff/buffs, defensive CDs, rezzes (outside of WL rez which en masse is arguably too effective), slows, sprints, strong AoE damage (Creeps have almost literally zero AoE options), and -heal debuffs/buffs. Creeps have access to some strong CC with WL Shieldbash and Spider, but Freeps also have solid CC tools available. Oh, and the few debuffs that Creeps do have (Fleas, Dust, Spider debuffs, Disarm, Silences) are instantly removed OR resisted with Muster Courage/the glut of purge skills that Freeps now have. Creeps need better scaled and simply more utility.

Here’s a list of creep utility problems:
1) Muster Courage 1.4 fear resist multiplier
one skill - Muster Courage - almost completely negates huge number of crucial creep skills:
- all WL shouts
- defiler aoe fear
- defiler -25% out. healing debuff
- warg aoe fear
- warg silences (single target and aoe)
- spider single target fear
Even though MC was nerfed (from 1.7 multiplier to 1.4) it’s still really really strong, especially now when creeps base finesse is extremely low.
The most important abilities that creeps lose because of Muster Courage are defiler fear and WL shouts (defiler aoe fear is one of the most useful CC creeps have and if freeps have a cappy in their group this skill becomes practically useless; WL shouts are extremely important for burst healing because they give no-induction buff for healing skills and also because freeps can't interrupt WL heals if he has this buff. If WL can’t use shouts his group effectiveness drops by like 50%, if not more, and that is how strong Muster Courage is)

2) Cleanse skills
Freeps have tons of cleanse skills which make a lot of creep debuffs and dots useless in group pvp because of how fast they can be cleansed. Some of these debuffs and dots are extremely useful:
- almost all spider dmg comes from dots that can be cleansed which reduces spider's effectiveness in group
- induction debuffs
- silences and disarms
- miss chance debuffs

3) Lots of skills/traits are either really weak or just completely useless
Let me give some examples:
- reaver/defiler armour debuffs are really weak. On live they reduce mitigations by like ~1%.
- defiler skill Blessing of Darkness (which is suppose to be a strong defensive CD like WL bubble) is countered by any "interrupt" skill immediatly. That's a joke compared to bear "Sacrifice", for example.

This brings up 2 questions:
1) are there going to be any changes to freep skills/traits/traceries for the sake of pvp balance or just creeps? (maybe only in pvp zones and not in the game in general)
2) are there going to be any creep class specific changes (skills/traits) in the future (and when)?
Our feedback depends on these questions. Sorry if it was mentioned already and I missed that.

2. Creep base stats and corruptions

- Creep stats/corruptions
Creep base stats (crit/finesse, bpe, resist, etc) have been in disarray for ages- usually being hilariously weak (BPE/Resist were crazy strong for a brief period not long ago). More uniformity with this ALONG with a significant nerf to corruptions and a significant buff to base stats would be my preference. As it is there is a vast variance in Creep builds in the Moors, all of which have gaping holes. I would prefer corruptions to be small flavors/boosts to an already robust base set of stats to increase uniformity in PvP experience (same reason why you wouldn't want 5 essence slots in your PvP gear).

Agreed. Creeps should have strong base stats and corruptions should give small boosts, not the other way around.

3. Population Buff

- On Buff/Population buff.
Please rework or remove this. Granting all of Freepside a free Tome of Defense hardly (if ever) encourages people to swap sides- it just spits in the eye of combat integrity for RvrR all the way down to soloers. Either remove it entirely or rework it to reward more infamy for the weaker side. There has to be a better way to address numbers imbalance, and please don't punish Creeps for afk Freaver spys!

Outnumbered buff is a terrible mechanic which usually is only in freepsides favour. You rarely see it on creepside and if it's there it won't last more than mere minutes as it is very easy to log in a few freavers to balance the numbers back out, or even worse, grant the buff to freepside which does happen. A potential solution could be to make it area based or to not include characters that are residing in either GV or Grams.

Agreed. Outnumbered buff (Akhulun’s fury and Lainedhel’s Call to Arms) should be removed from the game. There are several versions of this buff, the most common one is 9.8% dmg reduction which actually decreases incoming dmg by 14%. That is a massive buff and there should not be any buffs of that kind that affects pvp zone globally. Mastery buff from outposts should also be removed.

4. Store buffs
Ideally, store buffs that affect combat (especially tomes of defence) should not be usable in pvp zones because freeps can buy them with gold and creeps can only buy them from the store; but I assume that’s not happening.

5. Backdoors
Backdoors should be removed.

6. WL, healtagging and commendation prices

warleaders desperately need a heal buff. defiler healing is fine atm. PLEASE REMOVE heal tagging unless grouped. defilers can put a HOT on you and still get infamy from people you kill minutes later.
The commondation cost for stuff on creepside is a little pricey. For all skins even the low rank skins cost 7.5k comms. esp when com cap is 15k. its really bad for low rank creeps. they have to worry about buying new skills, passives, class traits, audacity and pots. maybe at least lower the cost for creep pots and raise comms cap.

I agree with all these points. Just wanna add that WL needs a rework to increase it’s usefulness in group but since that’s not happening soon as far as I understand, at least a healing buff would be nice.

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Thank you for your pvp work!

[Daenirion]

Based on the feedback in this thread, I am working on the following for next week's Bullroarer:

- After further review, only Guardians and Champions have skill melee range increases. Instead of bumping all the creeps up to 5.2m range we are bumping Warleaders and Reavers up, and leaving the other classes at 3.5m for the moment. The better fix is to allow a melee range increase corruption, but that something that may happen in the future.
- One shotters are being added to guard the interior of Glan Vraig
- I am either going to try and fix the backdoors, or remove them altogether.

Am I dreaming? Thank you!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in regards to backdoors is performance issues. As you can see in the video, most of the time you have around 20 - 30 people on both sides shuffling back and forth between either Gramsfoot or GV and one of the backdoors. Now sometimes one side has to fall back and if it's the side with the backdoor behind their back, they use it to avoid death. What does that mean? You have ~30 people interacting with the backdoor and most of them don't just click on it once, they spam it. You have probably more than a hundred interactions per second with one single item and then people's characters disappear and then have to be reloaded inside the keep. Character models, buffs/debuffs, everything that is attached to that character. There is no re-use cooldown, no restrictions at all, so people just pop in and out.

I don't know of you're aware of the issue with handing in mission quests on more populated servers. Sometimes it takes minutes to hand in a quest or deposit something in your bank. That kind of lag is what we've been dealing with in PvP for years.

As others have already said, if the option to remove them entirely is on the table, then ABSOLUTELY yes

@Fants I just realised that you were on the world building team, so you probably CAN remove them

If it takes too long you could just disable them so that we can't interact with them anymore at all as a short term solution until you're able to remove them entirely

[ConsistentRager]

Am I dreaming? Thank you!

One thing that hasn't been mentioned in regards to backdoors is performance issues. As you can see in the video, most of the time you have around 20 - 30 people on both sides shuffling back and forth between either Gramsfoot or GV and one of the backdoors. Now sometimes one side has to fall back and if it's the side with the backdoor behind their back, they use it to avoid death. What does that mean? You have ~30 people interacting with the backdoor and most of them don't just click on it once, they spam it. You have probably more than a hundred interactions per second with one single item and then people's characters disappear and then have to be reloaded inside the keep. Character models, buffs/debuffs, everything that is attached to that character. There is no re-use cooldown, no restrictions at all, so people just pop in and out.

I don't know of you're aware of the issue with handing in mission quests on more populated servers. Sometimes it takes minutes to hand in a quest or deposit something in your bank. That's what we've been dealing with in PvP for years.

As others have already said, if the option to remove them entirely is on the table, then ABSOLUTELY yes

@Fants I just realised that you were on the world building team, so you probably CAN remove them

If it takes too long you could just disable them so that we can't interact with them anymore at all as a short term solution until you're able to remove them entirely

Shamless yoink of one of Mula's videos just to keep emphasizing the fact that these needs to be eliminated.

[Spilo]

While I'm sure this will get mixed reactions, I'd like to propose disabling heal target forwarding in pvmp environments only. In-terms of gameplay, its one of the laziest and cheapest ways to heal whatever is being targeted by an enemy player. You don't have to even pay attention, just select an enemy dps player and spam heals (literally just, tab, 1, 2, 3, repeat) . I'm guilty of doing this and find no real lasting pleasure in doing so; However, I'm still advocating its use in PvE situations. In PvP I feel it's detrimental to higher level gameplay opportunities and learning. Just a suggestion.

Thanks for reading and working on pvp for us, we've needed love for a looooong time @Fants_SSG

Ooooh good one, this seriously dumbs down RvR!

[Daenirion]

Shamless yoink of one of Mula's videos just to keep emphasizing the fact that these needs to be eliminated.

Good one. This probably settles it - no further explanation needed

[ChaChaLoco]

Ooooh good one, this seriously dumbs down RvR!

Agreed, target-forward healing needs to be removed. Over the years it's generally been of more assistance to Freeps than Creeps, but with Defilers in recent years I suppose even Creeps can kind of benefit from it depending on the update balance.

In any event it's lazy and uninteresting. It also warps the RvR balance too because it makes it really hard for a raid to co-ordinate their burst DPS to overcome the healers on the other side (all the defending healer's need to do is target-forward heal through the enemy raid leader/target-caller and they will always be healing the ally that is under co-ordinated attack).

Again, this has typically impacted Creeps more than Freeps for a few reasons. First, because Creeps have generally not had AoE as potent/deadly as Freeps and so we typically only focussed on attacking one target a time to a degree that warranted that target receiving specific attention from the defending healers. Second, because Creeps generally do not have high enough sustained DPS to out-DPS Freep healers once all Creep DPSers are attacking the same target as the Freep healers are healing (this is also partly because of the various skills Freeps have at their disposal to interrupt/significantly mitigate Creep DPS, e.g. captain bubble, minstrel/hobbit flop, shield-wall, etc. Consequently, on most updates the only way Creeps could get kills in RvR was to take the other side by surprise with short, high-damage burst attacks co-ordinated onto a single target. This usually involved heavy use of Blackarrow's co-ordinating their Vital Target skill. Of course with the above analysis I am assuming a competent, ranked Creep raid of 24 players versus a competent, geared Freep raid of 18-24 players (depending on the update that number could go as low as 12, but let's assume a reasonably even update).

The only way that Creeps are able to counter target-forward healing is by having a Warg call targets. The Warg stays in stealth the entire fight (doing nothing) and every DPS class in the raid selects the Warg and target-forwards their DPS through the Warg. This makes it impossible for the Freep healers to target-forward heal. Obviously this is just boring and shouldn't be necessary.

To be honest, I'd be quite alright with disabling target-forwarding in the Ettenmoors entirely, for both healing and DPS.

[venyos]

Fants, ty for your response and PvMP work.

If SSG consider for return Orc Camp, Elf Camps back and you want to remove backdoors, I think is will be easier to revert ALL Ettenmoors map back, if ssg have old game build?
There are have good Plains of Gramsfoot Outpost (now doesn't exist)
https://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Pla...msfoot_Outpost
There are all outposts in rightly positions
There are OC\EC\Rez Points in normal positions.
There are backdoors doesn't exist.
There are no DEAD parts of map.

P.S Outposts Counter in Glan Vraig's flag have count is x of 5 outposts, when 4 is exists

Thank you!

[Snowlock]

I don't think outposts are something I would miss and definitely don't want to see more of them. In a contested fight, outposts can be a determining factor because they're not only a buff to one side but also a nerf to the other if they don't have them. Many nights will simply be riding around the map for freeps flipping OP's where on creepside a warg mapping around can do it solo. If both sides get caught up in this side game it's just a lot of time wasted on pointless pve.

If they were kept in game as quest rewards without the damage buffs, or their defenders buffed so it would at least take a six man to defeat them it would feel more aligned with the idea of fighting over objectives. Currently they're just swapped back and forth unopposed at the cost of a lot of riding around.

And also as smoke signals to the other side that we're out there because castles AUTOFLIP so they are no longer any indication of the enemy's presence.

[Spilo]

I don't think outposts are something I would miss and definitely don't want to see more of them. In a contested fight, outposts can be a determining factor because they're not only a buff to one side but also a nerf to the other if they don't have them. Many nights will simply be riding around the map for freeps flipping OP's where on creepside a warg mapping around can do it solo. If both sides get caught up in this side game it's just a lot of time wasted on pointless pve.

If they were kept in game as quest rewards without the damage buffs, or their defenders buffed so it would at least take a six man to defeat them it would feel more aligned with the idea of fighting over objectives. Currently they're just swapped back and forth unopposed at the cost of a lot of riding around.

And also as smoke signals to the other side that we're out there because castles AUTOFLIP so they are no longer any indication of the enemy's presence.

100% agreed.

[MourneBlade]

- I am either going to try and fix the backdoors, or remove them altogether.

LoL- oh boy, the backdoor huggers are going to have a cow over this.

[Riddim The Legend]

Hello all, I’m Fants (aka. Fantus) and I’ve been working part time on PvMP for the past year. In the past, I was on the world building team from Moria -> Rohan and I’ve returned to work on getting PvMP in a better state.

We understand that there are a lot of issues with PvMP in general, but the goal of these changes isn’t to fix everything all at once. We are trying to slowly right the ship in terms of balance and accessibility, while addressing longstanding issues.

The main goal of this update is to level up everything to the new level cap, create viable PvMP gear for freeps that is not PvE centric, and work on quality-of-life changes. In addition to the PvMP changes, there are several statting changes we are still working on - because of this we are planning on pushing the Bullroarer PvMP preview feedback to next week, likely 10/28. All of these changes are slated to go live with the Gundabad Expansion, though the higher level gear will be gated until the equivalent PvE content releases.

Hi Fants,

Freep Side
1. Duration of Foods & Drinks increased to 30min for all consumables equally and make it so that they remain after being defeated.
2. Coffee, which increases Run Speed can remain on existing durations, but should also remain after being defeated.
Note - By "remain after being defeated" I mean to work the same way as Creep foods and buffs. Once consumed, they remain for the duration even if defeated.

Creep Side
1. Buffs from Shakh the Food Trader could have their durations increased to 30min.
2. Foul Gruel could have its duration increased to 30min.
3. Potions that remove negative effects could have their cooldowns halved (From 30sec to 15sec CD).

Both Sides - Insignia/Brand
1. CC Immunity of at least a couple of seconds added would be nice. I'm sure other people have asked the same thing over the years.

[J-Moneyforever]

Another thought I had that might not be under Fant's purview but maybe something to pass along. Open PvP modes live and die based on population. Lotro once had 24/7 PvP action across the map. I'm not saying that can happen again but without population any development is fruitless. I believe it would be wise for SSG to consider promoting PvMP a bit more. As it is right now many newer players are barely aware the game has a PvP mode. A lot of this will be on us to pass along via word of mouth to our PvP friends. But it would probably help to even do something as small as a bit of marketing about PvMP in the Gundabad promotion campaigns.

[Areyekuwe]

Remove. Can't be fixed, don't want them fixed. The use of a keep should have an opportunity cost. They can be used as a place of defense, but if you stay there too long, it should become a trap. Or if your enemy is taking it, it should become a gauntlet you have to run to participate in its defense. Backdoors obviate both of these cases.

It's a very long thread full of great and very detailed writing, looks like everyone does agree on above! It should come along with removal of auto flips. -No need for some cheap action: here it somehow flipped, hop in. Make holding keeps and taking keeps meaningfull. These oils and ores we donate to the defence, make them count.

Are we getting flags back on the bridges as well?

Yes, Making it more interesting and complex is a must.

Also, if you want to make life easier for yourself, please use the Monster Play buff to balance freep skills for PvMP.



Every Freep who enters the Moors has this effect. If they leave, it's gone. You could adjust/fine tune problematic skills for PvMP without affecting PvE balance at all.

You'd be surprised how many people still haven't given up on the idea of decent PvMP in LOTRO and would return in a heartbeat. I remember a time where people would PvP during content droughts. Instead of playing other games, they kept their subs going just to PvP. Player retention is one the most important metrics of any game. PvMP is player driven content due to it's sandbox-y nature. If you provide a decent framework, there's a lot of fun to be had. This is your chance to correct the mistakes of the last decade, so don't squander it. There won't be many

I clipped some comments from post above. But this scaling tool / mechanism. It exists to allow players that are level 40 into moors, if i am not wrong.
We had a post with "lay of the land" in which it said that scaling all accross is broken and hard to do.

Why not make the monster effect change only morale of the players coming in on freep side establishing a "floor" of say: no matter what level you are you will get 400K in morale and it should be disabled for anyone who is above 400K already. If this scaling mechanism was not to touch any of the character's damage / defence apart from morale, in my opinion it be only fair.

-------------------------------------

My personal 2cent worth of text.
Really good to see people talking about this in good depth. Really good we have a dedicated dev. Thank you to all.

Only one post in the whole thread mentioned that there exsists a paywall of VIP status only getting into moors.
Make it into area, xpack, questpack -- whatever you want to call it and offer it to all as one time purchase. It should be a stand alone scenario like that. Pay LP in the store and gain it on all or one character and done. Why not treat it seriously as if it really was (which it is) a type of it's own server / scenario?

Perhaps consider limiting grouping from 24 to 12 or even 6? --It would reduce server lag as people would start running smaller groups doing different things?

Thank you and looking forward to more people coming into the moors as it seems pretty calm, most times with auto flips doing all the action