There and Back Again with Orion Notes

[WeirdJedi]

Since some of you appreciated my notes from the last stream, I'm going to go ahead and post the ones from Orion's stream. I hope I don't get in trouble for the wall of text.

Originally posted Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1586251192
Cordovan updated Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG60QWexz44

Lag: Investigating old code and adding trackers to detect where the biggest problems are. It won't disappear in one fell swoop (14min, 36min, 44min, 47min). We can also check out deeds (83min).

Classes: Changes are pretty much set in stone for minstrel (16min). We are ensuring every single class in the game has a viable role for instances and raid for endgame. We are choosing two classes to be "top-dog" damage dealers - probably hunter and champion. Other classes will be within 10-15% damage less (18min). We aren't out to upset the apple cart but make classes new and interesting while continuing balance and fresh (19min, 51min, 70min). We'll have a dialog about identifying player skills, adjusting corruptions to add monster challenge so they aren't "just part of your rotation", and instances where players can't just stack resistances to "walk through without worry" inside instances (52min - 55min). We will look into how class deeds are done when looking into traits (60min). Orion will be adjusting guardian, hunter, and beorning --- that includes more emotes for the beorning (79min). Overall goal will have a dps trait line, so don't expect all classes to be changed like the minstrel with two lines and a support line (82min). No reason to itemize power consumption/usage since we sort of just abandoned it in the past and we are looking for ways to how to get it back in (85min).

Look At: Virtues is something that is easy for us to give you something to strive after. It won't be immediately fixed or changed (21min). The mounted combat system was meant to duplicate real life but requires massive space to use the momentum abilities to execute. It is very costly to the servers. Orion will potentially fix it to be more usable to be less cumbersome in 2023, but it won't be a complete overhaul (22min). We are looking into offering various options to entice people to log into Treebeard, but there is very little we can do right now (23min). Orion is looking VIP options in 2023 [no specifics] (24min, 93min). There will be a new level cap, but Cordovan would never let him stream again if he says when (25min). We can look into shortening the level 1-20 experience as it can be long and daunting with all the running and overwhelming amount of quests (39min). Plenty of things we can streamline in 2023 like Crafting and Kinships (42min). [Might be Mispoken] but all virtue points will be refunded for minstrels respec (56min). We'd have to look at way to streamline new big battles since they are difficult and costly (56min). Numenor armor might be hard considering the reality of the world, but we can check it for crafting (57min). Cosmetic Carry-Alls have some challenges with adding cosmetic items to anything outside the wardrobe that would need to be overcome first (58min). There has been several ideas for hobbies: Orion talks about charcoal impressions (59min), furniture-making (74min), collecting rare items or bird watching (81min), and golf (90min). Orion can only work with UIs, but they need people with the discipline to create the UI (60min). Orion will check out more communication since it is something he is comfortable with and the background when with Turbine (63min, 72min, 105min). We love the game and in proxy love the players that have legitimate issues (64min, 80min). Orion can check about streaming in a pvmp fight, but he would need to generate a character that can be deleted so he can't be crushed all the time (101min). Checking on how to consolidate old rewards, barters, and wallet (66min). Something like lowering your level to assist players takes the discipline and we need the engineers to continue working on the lag to thrive "or survive as some of you put it" (67min, 97min). "Stay tuned" for bigger wardrobes [didn't sound serious] (68min). Implementing a level-scaling item is something we talked about but nowhere close in figuring out a system (91min).

No Plans: Traversable boats (21min). They don't the time or resources to have engineers look into a full UI overhaul (25min). We won't be revamping the skirmish system in the near future (26min). There would be a lot of required changes we are not prepared to make in order to initiate a level squish (38min). We can't simply add a percentage for buffs & debuffs for Monster Play due to how the system is built (41min). No plans on homesteads or river hobbits (49min). Not removing creep maps (60min). No plan to make housing hooks free moving since it would take a bit of effort to change how it currently works (61min). No plans for Spanish or Portuguese translations (62min). No update for music, but people seem to be pushing the accordion (71min). I don't think banjo would be lore-appropriate (73min). Fellowship Manuevers are a strange addition to the game and cool at first, but the idea of knocking both you and the monster out for 2-5 seconds makes it too cumbersome to update or enhance (76min, 92min). Hiddenhoard is meant to be very difficult and probably won't change more than it is now (78min). No new dye colors (78min). Carry-Alls being in the lotro store is handled by a different department (78min). Doubt there will be an alternative level 50-60 area to bypass Moria (91min). No additional corruption slots for monsters (91min). Expanding the plug-in API would take our engineers away from their performance work (96min). Having a true SoA server is not up to Orion to decide (98min). War-steeds are not going to be deleted (99min). Bards probably not be useful again (101min).

Monster Play: There are 5 steps: first phase went alright, second phase is coming out soon and meant to add more utilities to monsters, especially how wargs had one-button presses. Stage 3 will be rather significant and follow-up after the mini-expansion that can be tested earlier than usual on Bullroarer to test the sweeping, big changes. Keeps, towers, and control points will widdle down the number of mobs to reduce a little bit of the lag. What Orion is doing right now on his machine is to move EC & OC back to where they are. If everything works out and the plans solidify, there will also be new ways to get monsters into the fight faster and better while leveling up more malleable stats to be a tank, dps, etc (26min - 29min, 74min, 77min, 84min, 102min). Nothing on Stage 4 & 5 until 2023 (57min). Troll and Ranger is something Orion wants to address in around Stage 4 (100min). Delving of Fror will be blocked off and go under construction (46min, 95min). The original workaround for auto-flips in the Moors isn't available in the present and Orion needs to find a new way to fix the system since it's very weird to how it functions (43min). I'd love to get the big raids into smaller groups (73min). No comment on new creep race (80min). Differences in audacity is supposed to be huge (81min). Excising LIs is quite difficult since it is an integral part of the game, but finding a new weapon path by automatically swapping them is potential (87min). Stay tuned for any sort of potential areas outside the Ettenmoors [not quite a serious response] (102min). Orion tells - really fast - how a system put into Everquest was bad and they changed to the idea of monsters versus players in Ettenmoors (105min).

Delving System: System that adjusts up to 10 difficulty levels you can opt-in yourself to get equivalent gear - but with different stats - to the raid set inside any mission provided within the mini-expansion. The bartered gear will be updated shortly after T3 of a raid is released. (48min). Every day of the week will provide a new "flavor" that changes the missions. This will either buff monsters or nerf your character. The first update afterwards will take place inside Library & School (30min - 35min). Other instances maybe over time (88min). This helps accommodate solo players (37min). However, some combinations will still be pretty brutal (69min). Probably won't end up adding delvings into skirmishes since they are pretty decent as they are right now (47min). Delving will not replace landscape difficulty and is focused on instances (48min). Named after the line "dwarves delved too deeply" (49min). Missions allowing three or more people would technically consider it as an instance and we would have to spend more time on difficulty to adjust accordingly if we decided to do that [no answer if you can have two people inside a mission with a delving applied] (77min). Delving system will start at level 140 and won't be available immediately on legendary servers (103min).

Expansion: Mini-expansion has some cool Second Age material and will be out before the end of the year, but there is no hard date yet (37min). There will be more rewards to incentivize the new skirmish (40min). Orion is personally building around 20-30 missions [did not mention total amount they were shooting for] (43min, 86min).

[LagunaD2]

Thanks for the summary.

Sounds like the game will be messed up for eternity.

[auximenes]

Since some of you appreciated my notes from the last stream, I'm going to go ahead and post the ones from Orion's stream.

Thanks for the notes.

[wispsong]

No plans on homesteads or River hobbits? Sad.
No way around Moria? Sad.

[Valather89]

Thank you very much for the transcription and all the "timestamps". I really appreciate Orion taking the time for this, too, although the format could become more dynamic. He said some interesting things: some were good and in the right direction (though I don't expect them to happen until 2023 or later) and some were a bit of a letdown but expected and understandable, while a few others were straight out disappointing, not gonna lie. The shadow of the lag still looms over all of it, however. I know it's not his fault or even his main job, but his responses on this matter were very similar to what we've been hearing for the past two years and the situation keeps getting worse. It's a pity, really.

[elvenes]

Thanks for the summary.

Sounds like the game will be messed up for eternity.

so much this. The no plans section is extremely sad to read. They got no plans for anything, not even adding 1 dye color? how hard can THAT be...


thank you Weird Jedi for the transcript, though. I have no time to sit down and listen to a whole stream, so transcripts are very welcome

[YamydeAragon]

...for taking your personal time to write down this transcript in a organized manner. Now the other players can find out what was talked on that interview with the Orion. It is nice to see the faces of the people that creates LOTRO. I just wish that SSG remember that some players can't hear the voice interviews, & because that need written transcripts.

[CloudCastle]

No plans on homesteads or river hobbits (49min).

Wait, what? I thought they'd been dev confirmed at this point. Where is this mentioned? I checked the 49 minute mark but I didn't see any mention of river hobbits. Are we sure they are being abandoned? Seems odd that they went and made that new hobbit village in the new area coming up, in a level 1-30 area, right along a river even, and then tell us that they have decided to not do river hobbits. What happened?

[WeirdJedi]

Wait, what? I thought they'd been dev confirmed at this point. Where is this mentioned? I checked the 49 minute mark but I didn't see any mention of river hobbits. Are we sure they are being abandoned? Seems odd that they went and made that new hobbit village in the new area coming up, in a level 1-30 area, right along a river even, and then tell us that they have decided to not do river hobbits. What happened?

The timestamps are according to Twitch. Youtube's version cuts out the beginning wait time, which skews them. He falls behind in the questions, but he was responding to "36:30 I just joined, any news on premium elf homesteads and river hobbit race?" to which he quickly responds "no and no on homesteads or river hobbits" 49 minutes in.

I don't think it was meant to be a downright refusal. In fact, at one time they stated that they would likely do river hobbits unless something cooler comes across the team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WHeXZIfmi0&t=1740s. This could either mean that they haven't started working on a new race - as they said it was knocked out of their things to do in several previous streams - or that they just don't have anything to announce as it is too soon in development.

Regarding the homesteads, all we know is what was stated in the Housing Q&A. They talked about how they spend some time after releasing a major housing update to prototype new ideas and make adjustments to current housing mechanics. I remember that massive push to housing that was not included in the patch notes like thin furniture items were increased in size about 20% (since slots were consolidated), the Gondor beacon now has smoke that comes out of the fire in a specific direction you can turn, the housing chest was modified, the Orrey now spins and ticks like a clock, all skirmish decorations have had their resolution increased so that they are no longer blurry, and a bunch of other tweaks. They might not have yet decided on what type of housing to do next yet. Though they did mention that if they did decide on hobbit houses, the taverns in Yondershire would be a great template to use.

[Seschat]

Many thanks for your efforts!

[Duilyon666]

I could have sworn in the stream Orion specifically said 3 mans WILL receive the delving system...

[Duilyon666]

I checked the timestamp in the original post 77 minutes and I do not even hear Orion talking about the delving system.

This system will be super disappointing if it won't be a 1-3 man system imo.

[WeirdJedi]

I checked the timestamp in the original post 77 minutes and I do not even hear Orion talking about the delving system.

The question made at 77 minutes is a response to 58:22 "can we have missions just for more than 2 players" and he responds "well that would make it an instance... difficult to do more for the mission system other than solo or duo." This was a follow-up question since he made the statement at 32 minutes, like I stated in your other thread, that it will apply to only the missions within the mini-expansion. If they are only going to be available to those missions, asking how many players can be inside them is the next logical question. Though I would have liked an answer to: "will the delving system be limited to one player inside the missions?"

His next statement, since it is something that will occur after the mini-expansion, regards trying to work the delving system into old content. This is something that he was less sure about since it is something that he hasn't started on. Why begin that when he still has more missions to work on? He'd have to build each of the 10 difficulty phases for each and every instance. If everything works out, we'll have it available for at least School & Library instances in the following update after the mini-expansion.

[Trientalis]

I just wish that SSG remember that some players can't hear the voice interviews, & because that need written transcripts.

Written transcripts from SSG would be nice. In the meanwhile, you can always turn on Closed Captioning on youtube and twitch once the archived videos are uploaded. Yes, there are some errors but it is still quite understandable. Keep in mind that there's a delay between when the video is posted and when the automatic CC is available.

And kudos to WeirdJedi - great service to the community!

[CloudCastle]

The timestamps are according to Twitch. Youtube's version cuts out the beginning wait time, which skews them. He falls behind in the questions, but he was responding to "36:30 I just joined, any news on premium elf homesteads and river hobbit race?" to which he quickly responds "no and no on homesteads or river hobbits" 49 minutes in.

I don't think it was meant to be a downright refusal. In fact, at one time they stated that they would likely do river hobbits unless something cooler comes across the team: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WHeXZIfmi0&t=1740s. This could either mean that they haven't started working on a new race - as they said it was knocked out of their things to do in several previous streams - or that they just don't have anything to announce as it is too soon in development.

Ok, thank you. I also would interpret this to mean, "No there is no news on river hobbits." To me this means, "we have nothing new to announce" and not "we have scrapped the plans for river hobbits." I do wish he had had more to say about them though. I have been looking forward to them for a while and was hoping that they were coming soon.

[WeirdJedi]

Ok, thank you. I also would interpret this to mean, "No there is no news on river hobbits." To me this means, "we have nothing new to announce" and not "we have scrapped the plans for river hobbits." I do wish he had had more to say about them though. I have been looking forward to them for a while and was hoping that they were coming soon.

Yeah. That's my notes for ya. "No news" would have better than "no plans" right there. Reminds me of my first notes I accidentally wrote "barter options" instead of "barber options" which led to some interesting discussion in the thread.

The news of river hobbits was always fascinating to me. It all started like some sort of joke from PAX East March 2020: https://www.mmo-central.com/2020/03/...rob-ciccolini/. Then you had the threads: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...its-are-coming and articles: https://massivelyop.com/2020/03/06/l...ype-of-server/ exploding with hype. I knew we probably wouldn't see a new race for awhile since the Stout-Axe Racial was being offered a la carte for 1000 lotro points outside the expansion at that moment.

Raninia went into a little more detail discussing how they still did not commit to river hobbits being the next race, similar to the October stream I posted above, and would have needed to figure out how to make them special (including racial abilities): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXmaQwsk7eU&t=1020s. He mentioned in that same stream around the 8min mark that the team chose Yondershire for the Anniversary Event way back in September 2021.

[CloudCastle]

Yeah. That's my notes for ya. "No news" would have better than "no plans" right there. Reminds me of my first notes I accidentally wrote "barter options" instead of "barber options" which led to some interesting discussion in the thread.

The news of river hobbits was always fascinating to me. It all started like some sort of joke from PAX East March 2020: https://www.mmo-central.com/2020/03/...rob-ciccolini/. Then you had the threads: https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...its-are-coming and articles: https://massivelyop.com/2020/03/06/l...ype-of-server/ exploding with hype. I knew we probably wouldn't see a new race for awhile since the Stout-Axe Racial was being offered a la carte for 1000 lotro points outside the expansion at that moment.

Raninia went into a little more detail discussing how they still did not commit to river hobbits being the next race, similar to the October stream I posted above, and would have needed to figure out how to make them special (including racial abilities): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXmaQwsk7eU&t=1020s. He mentioned in that same stream around the 8min mark that the team chose Yondershire for the Anniversary Event way back in September 2021.

I'm still kind of hoping that they will surprise us and river hobbits will be ready when the new area comes out. We've seen the leaks that show a hobbit village along the river, we know it's a level 1-30 zone...what better time to also introduce river hobbits? Why put in that village otherwise? Still crossing my fingers...

[YamydeAragon]

Written transcripts from SSG would be nice. In the meanwhile, you can always turn on Closed Captioning on youtube and twitch once the archived videos are uploaded. Yes, there are some errors but it is still quite understandable. Keep in mind that there's a delay between when the video is posted and when the automatic CC is available.

And kudos to WeirdJedi - great service to the community!

Close Captions are not automatic. If the creator of the video don't enable them in the file, they will not show no mater if i enable them in my side. In fact, most LOTRO videos don't have close captions at all, i once wrote a thread about that issue. But thanks for reminding me about that feature. Maybe they started to enable them recently.

[Steelfist]

Nice recap, ty weirdJedi

[Dinara]

Thanks for doing this! It is very appreciated!

[SSG_Orion]

I could have sworn in the stream Orion specifically said 3 mans WILL receive the delving system...

I did. Likely beginning some time in early 2023.

[SSG_Orion]

I checked the timestamp in the original post 77 minutes and I do not even hear Orion talking about the delving system.

This system will be super disappointing if it won't be a 1-3 man system imo.

The initial goal of Delvings is for solo and duo players to work through missions and obtain gear that is on par with Raid level gear. This has always been the intention of the new system. Over time we hope to back fit the functionality into 3-man instances first, likely the School and Library. We're making the system flexible, varied, and extensible so that it can extend even further over time with new flavors being added to increase the variety and style of the difficulty settings.

[SSG_Orion]

Ok, thank you. I also would interpret this to mean, "No there is no news on river hobbits." To me this means, "we have nothing new to announce" and not "we have scrapped the plans for river hobbits." I do wish he had had more to say about them though. I have been looking forward to them for a while and was hoping that they were coming soon.

The correct reading or listening is that there is no new news on River Hobbits.

[SSG_Orion]

I'm thinking that the next discussion will focus on the plans moving forward. Much like I am outlining what our plans are with Monster Play. We have pretty extensive plans for every other aspect of the game. It would behoove us to provide a little more information. I'll talk to Cordovan and Severlin about doing just this.

[WeirdJedi]

I'm thinking that the next discussion will focus on the plans moving forward. Much like I am outlining what our plans are with Monster Play. We have pretty extensive plans for every other aspect of the game. It would behoove us to provide a little more information. I'll talk to Cordovan and Severlin about doing just this.

Further explanation of the Delving System might be good. I know tons of people who are antsy to find out when and how their classes are going to change. I think there are a lot of players migrating to the game who really want to know the typical things about UI, 4K, Old Servers, 2FA, and Performance Changes. I know a few wanting to know endgame, crafting, and skirmishes. I personally would like to know how the new forums are coming along.