Update 32: The "something we'd like to do" Update!

[Harvain]

In 14 years of playing this game, I cannot think if a single bug that has ever really super bothered me to the point I'd rather it be fixed than get something new. I've been leading a kinship for 13 years. I can't think of a single update I'd like that I can't do already on a website or in discord that would make me want to eschew new content for an update. There's no sense in asking for some grand class rebalance. They just completed that. If you want them to do it again, then I'm going to use the definition of insanity on you.

New content first and always. Tuck in the rest as best you can.

It's not so much about bugs but SSG is getting dangerously close where 14+ years of Coding is really, really, showing it's at it's limits.

Definitely can't do a "Major Update Cycle being purely about Older Content, fixes, etc" but SSG can't ignore how much junk there is with LOTRO that needs dealt with.



If they are gonna work on anything, it should be to improve said System. Make Systems take less Resources to run them, deal with older flaws and expand Systems more.

Like PvMP for an example, if SSG and the new PvMP Developer are serious about Supporting such it shouldn't only be about Support, it should be able Optimizing and Expanding said System and making it thrive as much as possible. Otherwise if they aren't gonna do such scrap PvMP and put that Developer onto stuff that needs more help.

If they are gonna work on Kinships, Crafting, etc they need to Support, Optimize and Expand.



If it's a System that is gonna STAY in LOTRO and not be removed, it has to be Supported, Optimized and Expanded going forward and any System that isn't going to receive such needs to be minimized as much as possible or removed from LOTRO.

[Echoweaver]

Most of the "Game is garbage" post are fairly casual players having a one off moan on there first time on the forums.

And most of the, "This change destroyed the game and now it will fail/has failed," posts come from the same handful of forum posters. I'm not sure what the point is for the whole thread about what groups are the most obnoxious on the forum.

Essentially every regular here is a hard core player because they care enough about the details of this game to keep showing up and talking about it. You don't have to play at endgame to be hard core. Info about what various types of hard core players are thinking is useful. It's just not the only thing. Forum posters are not representative of the overall player population.

I personally would love to see a kinship overhaul. I'm pretty sure that there's been something in the works for a long time that hasn't been ready for release, sort of like the LI overhaul.

Class rebalance work is ongoing, and I don't think it's the kind of thing that ever gets finished. I'm pretty sure that hardware/lag work is also ongoing. Usually you don't get updates on server work unless there's a big move to a new machine or somesuch. 4K graphics support is a much bigger effort than the other stuff mentioned.

Yay for bugfixes. What are folks' top most annoying bugs? "Fix bugs," isn't really specific enough to be a suugestion.

A big performance irritation for me is the length of time it takes for many fancy furnishings to load (*cough* Door into Mordor *cough*) and the fact that if I leave my house, go visit a neighborhood vendor, and return, it takes that time to load AGAIN. Surely it could be cached or something.

Also, idle animations for housing steeds. If they had those I would use halters a LOT.

[Snowlock]

Like PvMP for an example, if SSG and the new PvMP Developer are serious about Supporting such it shouldn't only be about Support, it should be able Optimizing and Expanding said System and making it thrive as much as possible. Otherwise if they aren't gonna do such scrap PvMP and put that Developer onto stuff that needs more help.

No, they should not scrap pvp just because they don't have a developer to work on "optimizing" it. 90% of the time, there isn't a developer devoted to PVP. They seem to work in scheduled periods on it, or any system, and then move on to another. If there's not a developer working on "optimizing and expanding" festivals, do you think they should get rid of them? What about the fishing hobby? Housing? Skirmishes, mounted combat, epic battles?

I know the easy answer is "yes" but the reality is without these things, the game would be rather shallow.

[Loriandra1979]

These areas I desire to see SSG prioritize and focus on, even at the expense of new content:

1.) Server Lag/Game Performance issues
2.) Customer Service / Help Ticket System SPEED OF RESPONSE Time Improvements, Overhaul of CS Protocols (stop making players camp out on characters with tickets), plus overall quality of customer service improvements

Followed closely by...

3.) Finish/Fix released content the way it should have been in first place. It's not "OK" to release content "Still in progress". SSG asked Players to spend real life money on unfinished, unQA'd content. Not cool SSG.

Everything else can wait IMHO. Kinship overhaul, 4K improvements, Crafting Overhaul, etc. Stop ALL NEW CONTENT until the "House" is clean and set in order.

This, so much, 10000% this! The servers at the moment are utter garbage: lag, rubberbanding, being kicked from game because of lag, etc etc... and yes, ingame customer service needs big improvement.

[Murtanion]

This, so much, 10000% this! The servers at the moment are utter garbage: lag, rubber banding, being kicked from game because of lag, etc etc... and yes, in game customer service needs big improvement.

I often wonder how much of the server issues are due to character pile up. I have 6+ characters at 130+ with varying degrees of trait points, deeds done, piles of useless currency from old zones, swap gear, essences, loot, and other things "assigned" to make my characters unique. Multiply that by all the characters on a server that are being actively played. Its not wonder the old engine is stroking out. Curious if they went through and purged old useless stats/logs/etc if it would help the server lag.

We used to have 48 x 48 Raid fights in the ettenmoors at 50/60 level cap. 24 man Thorog Raid. Now we can barely field 6 due to engine lag. After all these years there's just so much bloat associated with each character.

[Nehniriel]

Helm's Deep was when they converted to the trait tree system, which affected EVERY SINGLE PLAYER IN THE GAME. But sure, the loss of players was all about endgame.

And I still hate this change. Even if I came back few months/years later but now just few hours per week and no more raids for me (I don't take times to grind to be able to do it).

For me (obviously not taking the performance issues which are mandatory) I will really take a review of the crafting.


And as Garidivil mentionned: 3.) Finish/Fix released content the way it should have been in first place. It's not "OK" to release content "Still in progress".
But for this point, I will just don't buy Gundabad till LI and Gundabad at least somewhat properly finished.

[Harvain]

No, they should not scrap pvp just because they don't have a developer to work on "optimizing" it. 90% of the time, there isn't a developer devoted to PVP. They seem to work in scheduled periods on it, or any system, and then move on to another. If there's not a developer working on "optimizing and expanding" festivals, do you think they should get rid of them? What about the fishing hobby? Housing? Skirmishes, mounted combat, epic battles?

I know the easy answer is "yes" but the reality is without these things, the game would be rather shallow.

But the thing is, outside of Festivals and Housing which I would argue has seen far more work done for these two Systems compared to PvMP in X amount of years, the other Systems haven't been worked on akin to "true" Support, haven't been Optimized, haven't been Expanded. These Systems are just...there...taking up space.

PvMP sat around as Dead Content for X amount of time and yet it couldn't be said that said "Development Time" that otherwise would be needed to work on such was used for other Areas and now there is only 1 Employee that is known to be fully working on said System which now has put PvMP back into the Development Cycle for any given year. Which the LOTRO 2022 Development Cycle must account for.

Mostly it comes down to are they going to "truly" Support and Optimize the various Systems of LOTRO or are they going to keep the tradition from Turbine alive of having various Systems within LOTRO just sat mostly year after year with nothing being done to them.

Every System needs to be worked on, Supported if it's a System that is needed which Skimishes, Mounted Combat and Epic Battles ARE needed for various stages of LOTRO's Content, Optimized and Expanded (or improved to make the transition through Systems like Mounted Combat better).



We know Housing has recently gotten work done to it and is getting more work done (Which Scenario actually is announcing stuff here on November 17th which as of this post he's already talking about). They added to the Fishing Hobby with the Gundabad Crafting requires Fish for Cooking Recipes. We know more Hobbies are coming, one being a "lore intensive" Hobby and then a "Collecting Rare Birds" Hobby.

So they CAN and WILLINGLY are working and adding to Systems which especially for Fishing and Hobbies have had a minor impact overall to LOTRO.

If they are gonna Support a System, go all the way.