Bullroarer Update 32 - Beta #7 - CLOSED

[Boraxxe]

I last posted this some time ago when we were all complaining about the Old Legendary Item system.

Now we have a New Legendary Item system.
After fooling with it for a while (this New system) I think the sentiment still applies.


Do you remember the first time your parent allowed you to push the power mower?
That was exciting, right?
Then, on a different day, they taught you how to put more gas in it.
It was a bit stinky, but interesting, right?
Then you learned how to check the oil. Another new and interesting thing.
And how to clean the underside, and get all that old grass cleaned off…kind of interesting, right?
Then, you learned how to remove and sharpen the blade.
And how to change the spark plug. Wow. A lawn mower has electrical parts? Cool.

Now, 2 years later you learn that this in now your responsibility.
You are charged with mowing the lawn and taking care of the equipment.

Not so interesting anymore, is it?

Still hafta' cut the grass, but we have a brand new mower!
It doesn't run on gas...it is electric and somewhat robotic.
It needs to be programmed to follow a particular track...The Reward Track.

[Pewpewmidget]

I don't beta test but I have seen enough to say that this reward track does not feel rewarding at the least bit.
Having this system account-wide but only one character can claim these rewards is flawed on it's own.
I've seen suggestions for individual reward tracks for each character. I also would like to agree then politely disagree with them.
What I mean by that is that every character should be able to claim their own rewards but keep the idea of every character progressing the same reward track.
I will also repeat the same thing that has been echoing around this thread, MOVE AWAY FROM THE RNG. Not only here but everywhere.
If I am rewarded a gold tracery and it ends up being useless, I'd be peeved.
Also, rewarding YELLOW and PURPLE traceries AND enhancement runes is also a waste of our time and effort!
Anyone who has been hitting up dailies for a while has accumulated more than they could possibly use on their character they ran them with.
Let alone running on multiple alts.
I have been running on 2 characters and each of them have at least 600 uncommon and rare and hardly any incomparable enhancement runes. Why?

In order for this track to feel rewarding, we need to be able to claim these rewards once per character instead of account and given at least incomparable traceries and enhancement runes.
AND the option to select the traceries we want.

This isn't related to the track but a few questions regarding the new LI system.
Why are scrolls of empowerment only disenchanted for 25 ancient script? 25 AS won't get you a level on a tracery slot. This needs to be at least 180, the price of a incomparable rune.
Why can't you disenchant unwanted enhancement runes like you can with unwanted traceries?
Why are there still no barter options for lvl 131 rare or incomparable enhancement runes at the LI npc in Rivendell?
Why are anfalas star-lit crystals still disenchanting to 2 lvl 86 rare enhancement runes? They need to be changed to disenchant for 180-200 AS.
Why are there so few options and ways to get anything outside of the reward track?

LOTRO is never complete, and it never will be complete. There's always more cool stuff to add

I want to say that I love the enthusiasm you provided here but, as it currently sits, there are plenty of older cool stuff that needs to be worked on before new cool stuff should be added.
For example, the allegiance (Mordor and Gundabad) UI, and now this horrendous reward track UI, both should be vertical.
The LI system has hardly changed at all since its release 3-4 months ago.
Past grinds are too long for what they are worth (Fangorn dailies and reputation, Herbalist dailies, MT, Felegoth, Dale and Erebor reputations, etc)
I get they were once endgame grind at a point in time but nowadays they just are too long to be considered going back to engage with.

I can create a lengthy list but I will leave it to those examples.

[Once_of_Bree]

At 136 in 130 gear with fully reforged LIs filled with traceries I already have problems in Azog missions which are tuned higher than Elderslade. This could mean right now the end of doing missions for me. You have severe stat increases between 130/131 which already stopped me from doing them on my mini. Before you can even out this difficulty jumps you shouldn't change anything.

Seriously? I've got a cappy & beorning that haven't done a single Gundabad quest that are now lvl 140 thanks to festivals, tasks & missions, and in the process have done all the Gundabad missions in their old gear and none of the missions were tricky, dull, boring and over long yes, but problematic nope. I'd expect a mini to breeze through them compared to my cappy, who is very much the unloved alt.

[CaerArianrhod]

I wanna push back on this idea that you can release a "Complete System" ever - there's no such thing, and you should be extremely skeptical of anyone who goes around saying they're going to launch a complete system.

It is very interesting, that someone from SSG is writing that.

The reality is all development, but especially development on a live product, like LOTRO, is iterative. We're always learning from feedback and adjusting things, creating new things, etc. No live product is ever completed, and no new additions to it are ever "complete" in any sense of that term.

Our specific goal here with releasing the Reward Track in Bullroarer is to gather feedback so we can better shape development. [...] And even once it releases, we know there will be more feedback to take in and learn from for future iterations.
LOTRO is never complete, and it never will be complete. There's always more cool stuff to add

Your posting is very interesting also, because you are writing about software development, and you are totally right with what you wrote here.
Unfortunately, we didn't see much from SSG in the past, in terms of software development skills on the scale, you are talking about here. Therefore, I am very interested to know which one of the SDLC* are you using resp. which one are you talking about here regarding SSG. Waterfall, Feature-Driven, Agile, Scrum, EP, Lean, Spiral, Rapid, DSM, else? Please excuse me that I ask so, but all the software development models include some basic principles and tools to work with them. Things like using a version management software, to avoid things that happened to SSG multiple times in the past, as to fix a bug in one patch and to re-introduce it in the next patch. Simple things like an issue or task board / tracking software. Just to name one example: the Name of the instances in Minas Morgul: first released on the German client with English names, then fixed the issue in a patch, and then 3 patches later the names were changed back to English. I am thinking it is very nice, that you are talking about software development, but if you do so, please consider that we see each time a patch is coming out from SSG how the software development process is working at SSG.

ad *) software development life cycle

It wasn't that long ago that you and others were saying that we should be using the community more to solicit this exact feedback, and we've been doing it with Bullroarers for 32 for almost a month, and we have more Bullroarers to come.

This is true, we have asked Turbine and then SSG for years to listen to community feedback. You are now beginning with that and I really appreciate your effort to come here read the forum and answer to issues and question.
Even EG7 CEO Ji Ham admit that LOTRO "have been underinvested under Daybreaks ownership alone" (fun fact: he was the CEO of Daybreak for the last 6 years), so we know that there are more issues with LOTRO as just some software development problems.
Just ... well, there is no time to rest on the laurels. You are in a very unfortunate position, as many things that have been ignored for years, are now escalating. The only thing what could help is to listen more than ever to the customers' feedback.
For example, one of the most shared feedback about the legendary reward track here is: removing the RNG from it. It is now up to you to prove your words.

[Joedangod]

Our specific goal here with releasing the Reward Track in Bullroarer is to gather feedback so we can better shape development. It wasn't that long ago that you and others were saying that we should be using the community more to solicit this exact feedback, and we've been doing it with Bullroarers for 32 for almost a month, and we have more Bullroarers to come. And even once it releases, we know there will be more feedback to take in and learn from for future iterations.

I don't really think this works either.

A beta test realm should really be for beta testing stuff, finding the bugs and giving feedback on the tuning of things. Bullroarer doesn't do that. Look at the instances that got released with Gundabad. One of the 3-man instances was so incredibly buggy that you had to close it a few hours after release. Even when it reopened it still had so many issues with different phases bugging out and breaking and the general tuning of it is all over the place. The 6-man also released in an awful state with random unavoidable 1 shots coming in to play and a last boss that just spammed the same ability over and over and over (wasn't even a threatening ability).

Bullroarer shouldn't be the place where players are stuck trying to highlight design decisions that we don't like. Anything that comes to Bullroarer is almost certainly going to go live in some form, this stuff isn't in an early stage of development, you've probably been working on pieces of it for months now. We can't really send you back to the drawing board on something that just doesn't work because you've already invested a bunch of resources to get it this far. I suppose we shouldn't really be able to veto stuff like that as nothing would get done but SSG needs to try understand why we don't like these things in the first place and work on developing systems that do resonate with the playerbase and feel good for the overall health of the game.

[Joedangod]

If the reward track is meant to be supplemental then you need to give us a primary way through which to earn the LI stuff. Right now the best method we've worked out for doing that is to spam Sari-Surma over and over again hoping for RNGesus to grace us with one of ~90 different traceries we desire. Obviously that's led to a pretty lousy experience, farming one instance over and over like that isn't particularly enjoyable but players are making it work. It should be noted that Sari-Surma farming is currently the most tolerable way of earning gold traceries, people prefer doing this to the other routes of obtaining golds (completing Epic Story on multiple alts to funnel golds to main/opening lootboxes).

When you remove Sari-Surma gold traceries you remove the most tolerable way to earn gold traceries without providing any alternatives. That's not what you should be doing here. You should be looking at the reasons why people are farming Sari-Surma and try to remove the negative aspects of the experience instead. Running an old instance at cap on T2C is fairly enjoyable but spamming it endlessly is not. To fix this you should be making other instances more appealing and encouraging greater content diversity. Level 85 is widely regarded as one of the healthiest endgame experiences in LOTRO as it incentivised people to run a large variety of different scaling instances from various level caps in addition to the new content of the time. Take a leaf out of that book and make sure the gold traceries are guaranteed to drop from the other scaling instances. Encourage running different instances by setting each instance cluster to have a limited pool of traceries that it can give you, make it a 1/20 chance for a particular tracery rather than the current ~1/90. Could also move to make some gold traceries available outside of instance content entirely, place a limited selection on a rep barter or something to that degree. Give a pick-a-tracery token out for completing a meta-deed.

It's important to note that the LI system doesn't need to be a thing purely gated behind the highest tier of raiding, raiding already has just about every other BiS gear piece tied to it. There's room here to make LI's something that every player could max out by doing varied content.

[Gamlieldar]

If the reward track is meant to be supplemental then you need to give us a primary way through which to earn the LI stuff. Right now the best method we've worked out for doing that is to spam Sari-Surma over and over again hoping for RNGesus to grace us with one of ~90 different traceries we desire. Obviously that's led to a pretty lousy experience, farming one instance over and over like that isn't particularly enjoyable but players are making it work. It should be noted that Sari-Surma farming is currently the most tolerable way of earning gold traceries, people prefer doing this to the other routes of obtaining golds (completing Epic Story on multiple alts to funnel golds to main/opening lootboxes).

When you remove Sari-Surma gold traceries you remove the most tolerable way to earn gold traceries without providing any alternatives. That's not what you should be doing here. You should be looking at the reasons why people are farming Sari-Surma and try to remove the negative aspects of the experience instead. Running an old instance at cap on T2C is fairly enjoyable but spamming it endlessly is not. To fix this you should be making other instances more appealing and encouraging greater content diversity. Level 85 is widely regarded as one of the healthiest endgame experiences in LOTRO as it incentivised people to run a large variety of different scaling instances from various level caps in addition to the new content of the time. Take a leaf out of that book and make sure the gold traceries are guaranteed to drop from the other scaling instances. Encourage running different instances by setting each instance cluster to have a limited pool of traceries that it can give you, make it a 1/20 chance for a particular tracery rather than the current ~1/90. Could also move to make some gold traceries available outside of instance content entirely, place a limited selection on a rep barter or something to that degree. Give a pick-a-tracery token out for completing a meta-deed.

It's important to note that the LI system doesn't need to be a thing purely gated behind the highest tier of raiding, raiding already has just about every other BiS gear piece tied to it. There's room here to make LI's something that every player could max out by doing varied content.

This guy gets it! The Imbued LI System wasn't gated behind the highest tier of raiding. Why make it so that the new system has traceries that are gated behind the highest tier of raiding? If the Rewards Track is supposed to be "supplemental" to how we build our usual LIs, then by all means, what is our primary intended to be?! My boosted 135 champion has a tanking set that is VERY SLUGGISHLY coming along, and I was REALLY hoping that the Rewards Track would be the answer to the fact that I'm still missing ~20 traceries appropriate for my tanking LI build. Am I going to have to default to Ancient Script grinding/School Grinding as the default for ancient scripts and 140 purple/blue traceries? I sure hope not.

Seriously reconsider making the Rewards Track NOT account wide, but on a per character basis. It will increase the value of the Bind-on-Account Heritage Runes tremendously. Or at the very least make the repeatable Rewards Track level that comes after level 99/100 provide consistent and generous rewards for the purpose of gearing alts (blue and purple tracery, plus blue and purple enhancement runes per iteration of the repeat level).

[Gabli]

Level 85 is widely regarded as one of the healthiest endgame experiences in LOTRO as it incentivised people to run a large variety of different scaling instances from various level caps in addition to the new content of the time. Take a leaf out of that book and [...]

Hold it right there, Satan !

I'm usually on board with what you write, but this had me fall off my chair.
It's quite the opposite, as far as endgame goes lvl 85 was the worst. Makes one wonder if you were there at the time !
- Remember farming t1/t2 instances for abysmal chances of getting gold gear ? Ask any champion that never managed to get his Malledhrim boots (+16% critical multiplier) what he thinks about it. Remember, there was no other way than RNG to get those.
- Remember the farm trains to drop Horse-Lords recipes off of random mobs ?
- Remember it was so horrendous and led to so many raiders quitting the game that French kins got world first and second of Flight to the Lonely Mountain ?

Lvl 85 was the epitome of unhealthy abysmal RNG-driven bullc**p.



I agree that current iteration on how to get gold traceries is terrible. If you want my take on it, which likely none does, the current RNG path should contribute to a non-RNG path. Say that you drop a gold (respectively teal) tracery that is useless to you, then disenchanting it should give you (on top of the Ancient Scripts) a token. When you have 3 tokens, you can trade those for a Cracked (resp. Shattered) tracery.

[Joedangod]

It's quite the opposite, as far as endgame goes lvl 85 was the worst. Makes one wonder if you were there at the time !
- Remember farming t1/t2 instances for abysmal chances of getting gold gear ? Ask any champion that never managed to get his Malledhrim boots (+16% critical multiplier) what he thinks about it. Remember, there was no other way than RNG to get those.
- Remember the farm trains to drop Horse-Lords recipes off of random mobs ?
- Remember it was so horrendous and led to so many raiders quitting the game that French kins got world first and second of Flight to the Lonely Mountain ?

Healthiest in terms of the activities people did. Whilst it did somewhat suck to never get my damn +5% healing cloak on Warden (was a tank main at the time) I still remember 85 cap as having way more content variety because it made the move of putting something good in pretty much every aspect of the game and it made solid use of old content. The weakest points of that cap honestly had more to do with the initial launch (Hytbold being the only endgame content for months and Warsteeds....being Warsteeds). Raiders didn't quit the game because the Horse-Lords recipes, they quit because the raid content they were promised was massively delayed and wound up being 3 mediocre encounters rather than the follow up to Tower of Orthanc that they had hoped for.

To look at the bigger picture, 85 cap gave us:

• Landscape dailies to build our own town and gain access to pretty good set-bonus gear.
• A second tier of set-bonus gear from the raids.
• Rare drops in old and new scaling instance clusters.
• Rare gems from the new instances that could be used to tier up fancy rings obtained from Warbands.
• Rare craft recipes to produce 1 or 2 gold pieces (these recipes were eventually added to a barter).
• Reputation locked Wildermore jewellery pieces.

Whilst some of the drop rates were a little awkward in places the spread of things was pretty ideal. Now I'm not suggesting they do the gold class item thing and put exceptionally rare drops into random instances but the general concept of giving each scaling instance cluster its own unique pool of gold traceries is fairly solid. The main drawback of SS right now is that it's 1 gold tracery from a pool of ~90. It honestly wouldn't be that bad if it was a pool of 20 traceries as you'd have a much easier time of targeting a specific tracery. The reward track is your bad luck protection here, should you be particularly unlucky on a few traceries it should give you the universal trade-in token. As mentioned there's also the option of making some traceries available via other means such as rep barters/deed completions.

The key thing here is that you want to push players towards actually doing stuff and you want that stuff to be as varied as possible.

[Weilan]

A bit of a joke, don't you think? This is all unlocked when you become VIP and otherwise not and now it is free for all? what get VIP in return?

Maybe the point is for the game to be less expensive and more welcoming to new players. This also means very straightforward. When I began playing, I had no idea what I had to buy or what certain restrictions are.

Why do you feel like you should be getting anything? Aren't you a little entitled and greedy?

I would be more happy if LOTRO becomes more free, straightforward and this in turn breathes new life into the game with new players, who will also start buying stuff and make the game a little bit more successful and maybe, just maybe, it will cause the game to be more updated and modernized at a faster pace. Updated graphics, more well-performing and optimized game engine, more content updates, more expansions.

Maybe they will award VIP players with a "VIP pat on the back". I have also been VIP a few times as budget allows. Not everyone has piles of disposable income, you know.

[Pavlin]

Brawler - Strike Towards the Sky range increase (2.5->3.5).

Brawler - All attack AOE's shorter than 7m have been extended to 7m.

So STS will have 7m radius right ?

Because second change overlap the (2.5->3.5) ?
Or StS is not considered AoE ?

[WindDancer13]

A bit of a joke, don't you think? This is all unlocked when you become VIP and otherwise not and now it is free for all? what get VIP in return?

For the last several years, VIPs have been getting new benefits (e.g., the mailbox from anywhere. the perks from the NPC, etc) while F2P have not. Giving F2P players a little bit extra will not hurt VIPs, but may draw in and keep players who may eventually do a subscription at a later date. More players is a good thing.

I paid for VIP for nine years on my main account and switched to F2P when I found due to time constraints that I was playing so much less that it was not financially reasonable. I have also paid for one to three months VIP on my other accounts at various times. If money and time are available, I will sub again, but until that time not having to grind for points to spend on traits will keep me more interested in playing as time allows.

[HolyDuckTape]

Hey ssg when are you increasing embers gained from disenchanting gear again? It used to be double than what it currently is, it only got halved with as reason that we had 12+ instances at that time...

I'm still being ignored about this, it's very conveniently forgotten about....kaching... kaching wait what was that? Im hearing a cash register constantly and some ''taaadaa'' sound effects of some boxes being opened.

[Sunseekre]

For the last several years, VIPs have been getting new benefits (e.g., the mailbox from anywhere. the perks from the NPC, etc) while F2P have not. Giving F2P players a little bit extra will not hurt VIPs, but may draw in and keep players who may eventually do a subscription at a later date. More players is a good thing.
<snip>.

WindDancer, for two years in a row, F2P players received all the questpacks for free that were purported to be included as VIP benefits that the VIP subscription pays for. For two years in a row, all players, VIP and F2P also were able to trade 99 LP per quest pack for all but the most recent expansion quests and instances. F2P were able to enter a code to receive the Adventures of Bilbo quests for free which were purported to be included with the VIP subscription pack. Now, F2P are receiving all their traits unlocked for free as well as gold cap removed for free as well as premium wallet for free, which many VIP and F2P traded 995 LP to be able to use.

Even the new reward track is free for VIP and F2P. Most other games that offer a battle pass/reward track have a paid version and a free version - this game has just one version for both VIP and F2P.

I don't begrudge these offerings to F2P, but each time a VIP benefit is given to F2P for free, it dilutes the value of the VIP subscription and usually causes people to drop VIP beyond the one month needed to unlock bags/swift travel. I am happy that SSG has been providing F2P many quality of life improvements for the past few years. The game needs F2P players as well as VIP players. If there were no F2P players, it would be like going to a movie and not seeing any extras on the movie set - it would be sparse and unnatural.

The quality of life perks enjoyed by VIPs, the mobile mailbox and subscriber town services, and the fast travel housing decoration from WoTP is a welcome bonus. The game also needs to maintain VIP players by providing value for the VIP subscription.

I am glad that many playstyles are being encouraged. Now, if only they were to improve crafting beyond level 95 instead of continuing to bury the special ingredients behind a raid wall and behind reputation grinds!

I look forward to seeing the next build of BR!

As always, just my opinion :-)

[Boraxxe]

Now, if only they were to improve crafting beyond level 95 instead of continuing to bury the special ingredients behind a raid wall and behind reputation grinds!

I look forward to seeing the next build of BR!

As always, just my opinion :-)

A very good point. Thanks for that.

[CaerArianrhod]

icy breath hits the tank really hard and applies a bleed. that's what i would call a tank buster. shadow strike was a random aggro hit that oneshot players with less than a mil morale. that's a random aggro gear check at best, not a tank buster (can't bust a tank if you're never hitting one).

I can not agree with you on that.
Once again: look at the video I posted for you. Take your time and look it at with 0.75% or 0.50% speed. You can see very well when the bleeding is running. "Icy Breath" is a channelled skill and do not apply a DoT. Yes it hit very hard, but you could totally avoid it as the boss is not moving while casting. That is much, but not a tank buster. The random hit (or any hit btw) is not called a tank buster because it would hit only the tank, but because it would hit that hard that even a tank could/would die.

i consider this set actually good, not because it is unconditionally best to use at any given scenario, it is not, but because it is a good, creative, balanced set that alters a skill or a rotation in a way that makes it more interesting instead of *new raid set make good skill more good* cause i think that is boring, unoriginal and lame. i know very well that there will be situations in which i will go *damn, if only CaB was immediate now* but that's imo what makes a set bonus a good set bonus. it's not just a straight upgrade that makes you not think about it more. it will change the way you play your class, instead of keeping it the exact same, just slightly better. this is why i also love all 3 LM sets and the red and blue mini sets as well. they spice up rotations or make greatly underused (and underpowered) skills useful in a different way.

Boring, unoriginal and lame is only, if someone is calling the delay of a panic skill for a couple of seconds creative and balanced.
A set bonus hast to be something, you do not really need, but it is giving you some advantage to make your life more convenient. Let me quote you the meaning of bonus, a bonus is "Something in addition to what is expected or strictly due."
A good set bonus does not alter your rota in a way, that you need to think about it. It has to be an addition. For example: just adding the damage reduction for 4 seconds after using CaB. That would be an addition to what is expected (the immediate heal). Do you require it? Not really. Would make your life more convenient? For sure. What if the set bonus goes way? Nothing bad happen. It is just the convenience what is going with it.

Look at how the Remmorchant set bonus of the DD wardens altered the class. The set with minus CD on master gambits was a must-have, and the whole rotation of the class has changed because of it. Such is not a good set bonus (Oh yes! I liked it 200%). It is now a tracery because there was somehow no way back for SSG after how that set bonus changed an entire class.
As a good example: look at the Cat-Mint set bonus for LMs. That was a good set bonus. It didn't alter the behaviour of the skill itself. It was what you call "spice up rotations or make greatly underused (and underpowered) skills useful in a different way" because an LM could alter his pet rotation to use the skill twice.

If you stick to your definition, what a good set bonus is: CoB is neither an underpowered nor a greatly unused skill. It is a well established panic skill.

[Braer]

When I go see a movie I expect it to have gone through the editing process, not show in the order it's filmed and all the post processes complete and gotten the approval of early viewers. A "box" set will have complete episodic content to tell it's story and keep you entertained to see it through to it's conclusion.

How is it that Lotro gets away delivering the day's rushes? I caught the latest Bond film; I didn't have to plough through 10 iterations over the last couple of years. Seeing the second unit's pyrotechnics on the first look might have turned me away from the whole brand.

[Gunhard]

When I go see a movie I expect it to have gone through the editing process, not show in the order it's filmed and all the post processes complete and gotten the approval of early viewers. A "box" set will have complete episodic content to tell it's story and keep you entertained to see it through to it's conclusion.

How is it that Lotro gets away delivering the day's rushes? I caught the latest Bond film; I didn't have to plough through 10 iterations over the last couple of years. Seeing the second unit's pyrotechnics on the first look might have turned me away from the whole brand.

Maybe if you dont want to see it you dont go for beta and dont read all related stuff then?

[Belechael]

Maybe if you dont want to see it you dont go for beta and dont read all related stuff then?

Erm... I don't think he means BR. What we are playing in the Live servers pretty much feels like a beta to most of us.

I was thinking of starting a thread with all the things that just don't make sense, from quest rewards that are inferior to previous rewards in the quest chain, to the cosmetics that are completely messed up etc. etc. but bottom line is that it is not worth my time. I might just watch another movie.

[fealegwe2]

[/QUOTE]Seriously reconsider making the Rewards Track NOT account wide, but on a per character basis. It will increase the value of the Bind-on-Account Heritage Runes tremendously. Or at the very least make the repeatable Rewards Track level that comes after level 99/100 provide consistent and generous rewards for the purpose of gearing alts (blue and purple tracery, plus blue and purple enhancement runes per iteration of the repeat level).[/QUOTE]

you honestly believe that in season 2 you will get to level 100 after all your hoarded XP Runes are spent in Season 1?

[fealegwe2]

Hey ssg when are you increasing embers gained from disenchanting gear again? It used to be double than what it currently is, it only got halved with as reason that we had 12+ instances at that time...

I'm still being ignored about this, it's very conveniently forgotten about....kaching... kaching wait what was that? Im hearing a cash register constantly and some ''taaadaa'' sound effects of some boxes being opened.

i have been getting the same sinking feeling the last year. It all started when i read Severlin's statement he wanted new content every 13 weeks to prevent end game folks getting bored and playing other games.

This places a HUGE amount of pressure on a small dev team and the result is...1 a half baked Reward Track. 2 A barely functional new Li system that confused more people than its worth without any form of tutorial for a completely new system anywhere. 3 Re-using game items slapped together in a new area. 4 The customers ( players of LOTRO ) get turned into the Quality Control departments (Bullroarer Testing ) because Agile work ethic conveniantly means "lets rush it out there inside 13 weeks and let the community tell us whats wrong with it"

And then the announcement that EG7 took over daybreak. Since then i have noticed less rewards for more play-time required. This push towards RNG based rewards is IMHO a drive to keep the amount of players logged onto the game high which will look good on the CEO's spreadsheet when he wants to sell the game in a pitch to investors.

you wanna know what would make more players stay in the game for longer? FIX THE EFFING LAG!!

if that means no more content release for the next 2 years, but i can play my warden without wanting to shoot myself everyday... i will gladly invest real money again in the game but until then.......

[Braer]

Maybe if you dont want to see it you dont go for beta and dont read all related stuff then?

As mentioned it's live, and even then I'm not convinced it will be in a fit state by LP release time. Access to late game era for level 20+ via BBs and Missions is touted, by the usual suspects, as giving newcomers some connection to late game friends/players' activities: the palatable reason on offer; the real reason - to sell the latest expac to every player on release.
Everyone knows this but their specific rewards not found elsewhere or at contrived lower chances means ultimately they can't be ignored without consequence.


The nice guy who knocks on my door and engages me in a conversation shouldn't have me stumped as to why each time it happens my house gets robbed. Should I be grateful he's not hitting me over the head each time instead? Maybe. Then I keep scammers calling themselves Steve (heavily accented) and warning that my internet is about to be switch off on the line for ages dutifully going along with it until I start asking them what their mothers think about them scamming people for a living?

Too much time taken up coming up with a narrative and leading people down a rabbit hole for my liking. Messing with our heads only messes their own up, consequences. Soon be Mothering Sunday.

[JERH]

As mentioned it's live, and even then I'm not convinced it will be in a fit state by LP release time. Access to late game era for level 20+ via BBs and Missions is touted, by the usual suspects, as giving newcomers some connection to late game friends/players' activities: the palatable reason on offer; the real reason - to sell the latest expac to every player on release.
Everyone knows this but their specific rewards not found elsewhere or at contrived lower chances means ultimately they can't be ignored without consequence.


The nice guy who knocks on my door and engages me in a conversation shouldn't have me stumped as to why each time it happens my house gets robbed. Should I be grateful he's not hitting me over the head each time instead? Maybe. Then I keep scammers calling themselves Steve (heavily accented) and warning that my internet is about to be switch off on the line for ages dutifully going along with it until I start asking them what their mothers think about them scamming people for a living?

Too much time taken up coming up with a narrative and leading people down a rabbit hole for my liking. Messing with our heads only messes their own up, consequences. Soon be Mothering Sunday.

I’m not understanding the point you are trying to make.

“It’s live”. This is a bullroarer forum on beta. What is “it” you are talking about? Reward track? Gundabad? LI revamp? New Raids?

“LP release time”. I haven’t heard any information that update 32/reward track is for LP. ??

How does door to door sales people later robbing you and listening to phone scammers for ages have anything to do with LOTRO?

Messing with our heads doubtfully does anything to their plans/guilt/conscience. Corporations do it all the time for profit.

“Mothering Sunday”? Mother’s Day in the US is over 3 months away. What is Mothering Sunday and why would we care?

I’m sympathetic to many of the comments here on reward track but not good enough to follow your reasoning.

[Kotal]

I can not agree with you on that.
Once again: look at the video I posted for you. Take your time and look it at with 0.75% or 0.50% speed. You can see very well when the bleeding is running. "Icy Breath" is a channelled skill and do not apply a DoT. Yes it hit very hard, but you could totally avoid it as the boss is not moving while casting. That is much, but not a tank buster. The random hit (or any hit btw) is not called a tank buster because it would hit only the tank, but because it would hit that hard that even a tank could/would die.




Boring, unoriginal and lame is only, if someone is calling the delay of a panic skill for a couple of seconds creative and balanced.
A set bonus hast to be something, you do not really need, but it is giving you some advantage to make your life more convenient. Let me quote you the meaning of bonus, a bonus is "Something in addition to what is expected or strictly due."
A good set bonus does not alter your rota in a way, that you need to think about it. It has to be an addition. For example: just adding the damage reduction for 4 seconds after using CaB. That would be an addition to what is expected (the immediate heal). Do you require it? Not really. Would make your life more convenient? For sure. What if the set bonus goes way? Nothing bad happen. It is just the convenience what is going with it.

Look at how the Remmorchant set bonus of the DD wardens altered the class. The set with minus CD on master gambits was a must-have, and the whole rotation of the class has changed because of it. Such is not a good set bonus (Oh yes! I liked it 200%). It is now a tracery because there was somehow no way back for SSG after how that set bonus changed an entire class.
As a good example: look at the Cat-Mint set bonus for LMs. That was a good set bonus. It didn't alter the behaviour of the skill itself. It was what you call "spice up rotations or make greatly underused (and underpowered) skills useful in a different way" because an LM could alter his pet rotation to use the skill twice.

If you stick to your definition, what a good set bonus is: CoB is neither an underpowered nor a greatly unused skill. It is a well established panic skill.

well... i suppose we can agree to disagree. imo CDs that are purely self heals with nothing else aren't good CDs, nor good panic skills. you are low, use CaB, get hit again, back to low, soon dead. the set is gonna change that, from a reactive skill to a more proactive skill. 4s is still short enough to work as a somewhat quick skill, but you also have the damage reduction now. this set is not gonna be a must have, by no means. but using it is gonna make you change how you use the skill, make you plan more carefully when to use it, what to avoid with it. i think something like +5s break ranks duration would just be lazy and boring. sure, it's gonna improve your buffs slightly, but it's not interesting.

the LM set was good, cause that CD reduction meant that it changed your pet rotation, and yes, it changed the way you played cause you had to think and decide: keep up catmint spirit pet on 2 targets, have both spirit pet and raven up with catmint, or maybe even something else... it definitely changed something. i agree that the warden set was bad in the sense of it being mandatory to reach top tier dps, but i sometimes think these sets are used as a way to "scout" for future class changes as well.

idk... i think this guard set, and also a couple other ones like the LM or two of the mini ones are nice and refreshing compared to the common -Xs CD, +Ys duration or +Z% damage or something like that.

[Braer]

I’m not understanding the point you are trying to make.

“It’s live”. This is a bullroarer forum on beta. What is “it” you are talking about? Reward track? Gundabad? LI revamp? New Raids?

“LP release time”. I haven’t heard any information that update 32/reward track is for LP. ??

How does door to door sales people later robbing you and listening to phone scammers for ages have anything to do with LOTRO?

Messing with our heads doubtfully does anything to their plans/guilt/conscience. Corporations do it all the time for profit.

“Mothering Sunday”? Mother’s Day in the US is over 3 months away. What is Mothering Sunday and why would we care?

I’m sympathetic to many of the comments here on reward track but not good enough to follow your reasoning.

Content released for LP should not need explanation, a couple of months away. You might be considering BR purely for what's in the moment rather than long term trends and changes and comparison to other eras of the game. I had a Christian upbringing and education, so might be more aux fait with some terminology - google can fill in the gaps, but a lifetime to evaluate and make my own choices. Belief in the constructs of man in order to absolve your sins is "popular" though. I'm reminded of a common phrase from the movies "and you kiss your mother with that mouth?", a mother's forgiveness not necessarily bound by reason and evidence. Yup we are all victims on one level or another, better to face it than deny it. Age and experience might give me an advantage over others. The time to devote to thought another advantage over others.