Where do we go from here?

[Daec]

lets talk about fair shall we .... where is my sprint? where is my ranged interrupt? where is my hips? where is my flop/df?

Your warg has two of those a greater number of the list than my RK currently has. Unless of course you're advocating for all classes to have all of those things.

[Kate00]

Your warg has two of those a greater number of the list than my RK currently has. Unless of course you're advocating for all classes to have all of those things.

My warg is something i dont play. Your rk can get away from my defiler 100% of the time. I can get away from your rk 0% of the time. Sounds fair to you huh?

Edit: i've ran into 6 freeps in 20 mins. (sad state but anyway) all 6 got away.
1 burg hipsed. fine
1 hunter floped/df
the rest simply rode off into the sunset.

If you want movement to be fair it needs to be fair for everyone.

[Daec]

If you want movement to be fair it needs to be fair for everyone.

See my proposal earlier would you trade all the advantages that march currently has, for a 3% movement speed increase?

[ithinkiamserious]

My warg is something i dont play.

Maybe you should try it. Lots of wargs will hips/sprint as soon as they're attacked and instantly call out in OOC. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with that strategy if you don't know it already.....

Your rk can get away from my defiler 100% of the time. I can get away from your rk 0% of the time. Sounds fair to you huh?

You have a r15 defiler and you can't get away from an rk? A defiler actually wanting to run away from an rk? Is this some kind of joke?

[OnnMacMahal]

My warg is something i dont play. Your rk can get away from my defiler 100% of the time. I can get away from your rk 0% of the time. Sounds fair to you huh?

Edit: i've ran into 6 freeps in 20 mins. (sad state but anyway) all 6 got away.
1 burg hipsed. fine
1 hunter floped/df
the rest simply rode off into the sunset.

If you want movement to be fair it needs to be fair for everyone.

One could argue specific, individual class v class matchups all day and get nowhere, since classes are not mirrors of one another. Creeps don't mirror freeps, and even within a side, classes don't all have equivalent toolsets to one another.


If two players are standing far from each other, out of combat, and one person refuses to engage, there's essentially nothing we (designers) can do about that. It's tantamount to simply not logging into the zone. Movement parity would not make defilers able to always catch beornings or make champions able to always catch spiders. Standing at range, out of combat, and using your mount or March to refuse to engage is simply player behavior. The 3% difference that currently exists is so small that if you're moderately far from one another and both mounted, you're basically guaranteed to reach a defensive location (keep, rez circle, NPC camp, etc) before the 3% allows a freep to close the gap or get away.

[Neinda]

One could argue specific, individual class v class matchups all day and get nowhere, since classes are not mirrors of one another. Creeps don't mirror freeps, and even within a side, classes don't all have equivalent toolsets to one another.


If two players are standing far from each other, out of combat, and one person refuses to engage, there's essentially nothing we (designers) can do about that. It's tantamount to simply not logging into the zone. Movement parity would not make defilers able to always catch beornings or make champions able to always catch spiders. Standing at range, out of combat, and using your mount or March to refuse to engage is simply player behavior. The 3% difference that currently exists is so small that if you're moderately far from one another and both mounted, you're basically guaranteed to reach a defensive location (keep, rez circle, NPC camp, etc) before the 3% allows a freep to close the gap or get away.

What you are saying is great in theory. The reality has been creeps are being farmed constantly now. You changed the maps because one group of people were farming freeps. Those folks have now switched to their power leveled burgs and are farming creeps. The bad behavior has adapted to the new rules. Only people harmed in all of this are the ones that were trying to have a bit of fun and relaxation.

Please come to a small server and see what the changes to movement have done to the Moors. Maybe they work where you are playing but they are not ideal or useful everywhere. If you don't have the resources to balance PVP everywhere, just make one big, happy PVP server. At least if there are numbers, the creeps stand a chance. I remember times past when it took a full creep raid to kill a freep or two. Those were not fun times. As things stand currently, the changes don't appear to be working well for many players. Telling us it is a great change really doesn't make it feel great. Please look at more than Arkenstone or tell us that Arkenstone is the future for PVP and what SSG intends to support going forward.

[Kate00]

Maybe you should try it. Lots of wargs will hips/sprint as soon as they're attacked and instantly call out in OOC. Maybe you should familiarize yourself with that strategy if you don't know it already.....



You have a r15 defiler and you can't get away from an rk? A defiler actually wanting to run away from an rk? Is this some kind of joke?

wow did you ever miss the point.

if you reread it’s about escaping an engagement. Geez.


wtb a ranged interrupt.

[Kate00]

See my proposal earlier would you trade all the advantages that march currently has, for a 3% movement speed increase?

yes Daec. But where is my ranges Interrupt to dismount them? You are ignoring the point. I can not dismount freeps. They are getting away from engagements 100% of the time. Match March to Mounts is fine but I’m going to dismount them how?

[Oldwiley]

yes Daec. But where is my ranges Interrupt to dismount them? You are ignoring the point. I can not dismount freeps. They are getting away from engagements 100% of the time. Match March to Mounts is fine but I’m going to dismount them how?

Not that I should care as I mostly now tortoise in Pve; but going back to what might actually perk my interest in the moors again?

On the moors, freeps should be dismounted when they enter content, full stop : by doing this and making march the speed of a horse this issue goes away. And its a big one.

As for blessings, if we want to make creeps customisable it would make sense to make blessings broader and less, Oh I am a spider i need to use this one, I am a warg I need to use this one... but I will not get into an argument about them as I only glanced at them, not toyed with them.

The point is made by "the Blue" that classes/sides do not have mirror parity.... exactly, which is why creep maps were there, ganking or no ganking, to offset freep horses. For god's sake you can't have it to justify one thing and then not another.

Indeed if the justification is made that mapping in creeps have ruined some dev's experience of a balanced fight and must be burned, have they never seen a freep raid sitting on a creep map point, murdering everthing as it loads, if this is about behaviours.. a non-mirror system will always have its quirks

[OnnMacMahal]

The point is made by "the Blue" that classes/sides do not have mirror parity.... exactly, which is why creep maps were there, ganking or no ganking, to offset freep horses. For god's sake you can't have it to justify one thing and then not another.

You're correct regarding the original reason for giving creeps maps. However, at that point in time, creeps had no March skill, and even freep mounts were slower and generally more fragile. I'm not sure what 'one thing' you suggest is being used as a justification in one place and not another (apologies, I just lost the thread of that sentence and what specifics you're referring to).


The new iteration of March very closely matches freep mounts. While March is not perfect, it has a couple distinct advantages over freep mounts right now, and actually provides greater capacity for movement in places where even maps failed to before.

- Maps were very punishing towards new players (who were often expected to pony up lots of MC to buy maps or risk being dropped from pick-up groups) or destined to forever be struggling to slow walk across the map as their friends zipped around.
- Maps were great at getting you to the center of the map, but didn't give you any accelerated movement to points even a moderate distance from map-in locations. Moving around south of Grimwood, basically anywhere near Isendeep, and much of the area near DG/OR could still be painfully slow.
- Differing map cooldowns made it harder to keep a group together; players who died and released in an engagement could easily find themselves with map cooldowns out of sync with their party leader or the rest of the group, consigning them to being a straggler (sometimes for extended periods) while waiting for your cooldown to sync up. Keeping in mind that in the meantime, you had only a slight run speed boost from March.

Indeed if the justification is made that mapping in creeps have ruined some dev's experience of a balanced fight and must be burned, have they never seen a freep raid sitting on a creep map point, murdering everthing as it loads, if this is about behaviours.. a non-mirror system will always have its quirks

To me this reads like an argument in favor of removing maps, even from the creepside PoV. What's the upside of this behavior for you?

[SSG_Orion]

As for blessings, if we want to make creeps customisable it would make sense to make blessings broader and less, Oh I am a spider i need to use this one, I am a warg I need to use this one... but I will not get into an argument about them as I only glanced at them, not toyed with them.

You should toy with them. There are distinct variations to each and some are clearly better than others for some monster classes and there are some that get the monster back to being very much what they were before the inclusion of blessings. The plan, moving forward, is to expand on the efficacy of the blessing, its weaknesses and strengths, as a monster becomes more invested with that clan.

The point is made by "the Blue" that classes/sides do not have mirror parity.... exactly, which is why creep maps were there, ganking or no ganking, to offset freep horses. For god's sake you can't have it to justify one thing and then not another.

Indeed if the justification is made that mapping in creeps have ruined some dev's experience of a balanced fight and must be burned, have they never seen a freep raid sitting on a creep map point, murdering everthing as it loads, if this is about behaviours.. a non-mirror system will always have its quirks

The justification for changing maps is exactly what you explained here. Both sides were able to either 1) port in with a large enough group to wipe a smaller force or 2) completely negate the purpose of the map because there was an overwhelming force already present. Maps were available too often and too limitedly to be kept in the manner that they were. There was never any justification made that it ruined our experience of a balanced fight. What maps in their reduced cooldown state did was allow for a raid to move too quickly around the map with the expressed intent and capability of smashing the opponent and pushing them.

We are trying to move away from the raid vs. raid experience in the moors to a set of smaller groups fighting over the map, getting away from the full raid on raid madness to something that is a little more manageable for both sides.

[Oldwiley]

I'll begin by thanking you for a decent response and to apologise for calling you "the blue" as lack of courtesy was born of long frustration with engagement on this forum. It was dismissive and rude.

You're correct regarding the original reason for giving creeps maps. However, at that point in time, creeps had no March skill, and even freep mounts were slower and generally more fragile. I'm not sure what 'one thing' you suggest is being used as a justification in one place and not another (apologies, I just lost the thread of that sentence and what specifics you're referring to).


The new iteration of March very closely matches freep mounts. While March is not perfect, it has a couple distinct advantages over freep mounts right now, and actually provides greater capacity for movement in places where even maps failed to before.

- Maps were very punishing towards new players (who were often expected to pony up lots of MC to buy maps or risk being dropped from pick-up groups) or destined to forever be struggling to slow walk across the map as their friends zipped around.
- Maps were great at getting you to the center of the map, but didn't give you any accelerated movement to points even a moderate distance from map-in locations. Moving around south of Grimwood, basically anywhere near Isendeep, and much of the area near DG/OR could still be painfully slow.
- Differing map cooldowns made it harder to keep a group together; players who died and released in an engagement could easily find themselves with map cooldowns out of sync with their party leader or the rest of the group, consigning them to being a straggler (sometimes for extended periods) while waiting for your cooldown to sync up. Keeping in mind that in the meantime, you had only a slight run speed boost from March.

To me this reads like an argument in favor of removing maps, even from the creepside PoV. What's the upside of this behavior for you?

My "one thing" was why all classes don't have a ranged interrupt, for example, as we do not have a mirrored system, yet having a diverse non mirrored system was the reason creeps had maps. Sorry for a lack of clarity.

If creep march "almost" matches horse speed, why not match it. Though to me its not the speed that matters so much, its combat vs non combat use that really matters here. Though the bottom line is any speed advantage is there when it comes to opening or closing distance, however small, back in the day folks used to click on those speedy boots they'd saved for a reason.

I like the point that you make about new players and creeps earning their maps. Although much of creep "dead time" was spent with long term players helping newbies get maps done, so kind of on the other hand was something that created a sense of community creepside.

Cooldown issues existed sure, but with separate cooldowns for the maps, a back up alternative map was often a work around. Maps were more often than not used to rally after a wipe, or move to a new location on mass, ironically on smaller servers those folks running to get to their group/raid on lower population servers were often creating the best chances for small group and solo action away form the main fight. Having the whole raid running there together might have even lessened the chance of those small scale encounters.

Your right about areas of the ettenmoors being less accessible or inaccessible than others with maps, it certainly might mean some areas were more neglected than others. Then again maps tended to take people to the key points on the maps where action was more focussed or certainly in reach of them.

Creep sides would adjust to the failings of the map system. My point about freeps camping map points was more making the point that if its about kerbing behaviours, "like a hydra" you will stop some creeps from mapping in to gank and some freeps from camping map spots, but will deny their effective use. There's always going to be "behaviours" that folks feel are undesirable: at the moment you've created an issue with behaviours around horses.

If you were to ask my opinion on where to go from here, I think freeps being dismounted in combat is the number one.

As for maps, if you dismount freeps in combat, then there would be a case to change maps from their original design a lot more:
I'd be more in favour of both sides having one or two very short cooldown maps, e.g. freeps for ec and creeps for oc, near lug, near tr. A couple of medium cooldown maps to enhance movement to key areas near TA etc, and some long cool down maps for more remote areas of the map. All this would be splendid if you would just disable horses in combat.

[Oldwiley]

You should toy with them. There are distinct variations to each and some are clearly better than others for some monster classes and there are some that get the monster back to being very much what they were before the inclusion of blessings. The plan, moving forward, is to expand on the efficacy of the blessing, its weaknesses and strengths, as a monster becomes more invested with that clan.



The justification for changing maps is exactly what you explained here. Both sides were able to either 1) port in with a large enough group to wipe a smaller force or 2) completely negate the purpose of the map because there was an overwhelming force already present. Maps were available too often and too limitedly to be kept in the manner that they were. There was never any justification made that it ruined our experience of a balanced fight. What maps in their reduced cooldown state did was allow for a raid to move too quickly around the map with the expressed intent and capability of smashing the opponent and pushing them.

We are trying to move away from the raid vs. raid experience in the moors to a set of smaller groups fighting over the map, getting away from the full raid on raid madness to something that is a little more manageable for both sides.

Your replaying quicker than I take to write my posts. You have no idea how refreshing that feels and its appreciated. I'll have another nose at blessings, if for no other reason than you taking the time to speak to the old payer base ^.^

[Neinda]

We are trying to move away from the raid vs. raid experience in the moors to a set of smaller groups fighting over the map, getting away from the full raid on raid madness to something that is a little more manageable for both sides.

This is a great idea for an active PVP atmosphere. Most people don't play LOTRO for the PVP experience. Maps were never much of an issue on the smaller servers because we helped newcomers to the Moors either with quest items or the map tokens. I still have many of those tokens left over. There are other games out there that specialize in PVP and cater to a PVP only crowd. PVP in LOTRO is something to do in between content releases for the most part. LOTRO on most servers outside of Ark and EN does not have the populations to support small group PVP and none of these changes solve the problems created by the farming group that mostly populates Ark but moves from server to server as they feel the need to make others unhappy. This is why I keep asking for the devs to hold some town hall meetings or whatever you would call them and get some feedback from places other than Arkenstone. What works on there does not on the smaller servers. Either there needs to be balance between server types or no PVP other than Arkenstone and Evernight or just one big PVP server where everyone ends up when they enter the Moors. The changes may work for you and where you play primarily but they don't work for everyone.

[Mattgoofi]

We are trying to move away from the raid vs. raid experience in the moors to a set of smaller groups fighting over the map, getting away from the full raid on raid madness to something that is a little more manageable for both sides.

How would this be accomplished? Do you not think groups will work together still, in essence still raiding? If someone is getting wiped, they will always call for help, both sides get more when they can't beat who they are fighting. That and most of us love the RvR dynamic. It's been this way for 15 years, it's not broken, why are we trying to fix things that aren't broken? Unless you can't fix the lag and you're thinking this is a fix, which it isn't. That and creeps are limited with their numbers. We can't tap into a 600 person database of ppl in World Chat and get 40 or more to come out.

[Neinda]

How would this be accomplished? Do you not think groups will work together still, in essence still raiding? If someone is getting wiped, they will always call for help, both sides get more when they can't beat who they are fighting. That and most of us love the RvR dynamic. It's been this way for 15 years, it's not broken, why are we trying to fix things that aren't broken? Unless you can't fix the lag and you're thinking this is a fix, which it isn't. That and creeps are limited with their numbers. We can't tap into a 600 person database of ppl in World Chat and get 40 or more to come out.

This is an outstanding explanation. Thank you.

[SSG_Orion]

I'll begin by thanking you for a decent response and to apologise for calling you "the blue" as lack of courtesy was born of long frustration with engagement on this forum. It was dismissive and rude.

We all have bad days. No offense was taken.

My "one thing" was why all classes don't have a ranged interrupt, for example, as we do not have a mirrored system, yet having a diverse non mirrored system was the reason creeps had maps. Sorry for a lack of clarity.

The absolute reason that maps were introduced was the lack of monster mounts and an inability to give them the same functionality. That was 15 years ago.

If creep march "almost" matches horse speed, why not match it. Though to me its not the speed that matters so much, its combat vs non combat use that really matters here. Though the bottom line is any speed advantage is there when it comes to opening or closing distance, however small, back in the day folks used to click on those speedy boots they'd saved for a reason.

A few reasons, as pointed out by another poster here:

1) There is no induction on the creep March! skill that locks them into a 2s long summoning animation
2) There is no ending animation that locks them into place while they complete the mountain animation
3) There is no fall off of your mount animation when taking too much damage and thusly, being dismounted

Without those, March! moving to 68% would make it superior.

Some classes still have those speedy boosts, or the ability to trait for skills that will stop a fleeing enemy and frankly, there is a good chance that there will be more of those utility style skills added to the Monster Player arsenal over the course of the next year as we continue to address the concern of Monster Player utility.

I like the point that you make about new players and creeps earning their maps. Although much of creep "dead time" was spent with long term players helping newbies get maps done, so kind of on the other hand was something that created a sense of community creepside.

This is very true. Going and poisoning the Hoardale, visiting the locales, and getting jumped at the bridges was indeed, a rite of early passage. We do need to recapture that in some regard.

Cooldown issues existed sure, but with separate cooldowns for the maps, a back up alternative map was often a work around. Maps were more often than not used to rally after a wipe, or move to a new location on mass, ironically on smaller servers those folks running to get to their group/raid on lower population servers were often creating the best chances for small group and solo action away form the main fight. Having the whole raid running there together might have even lessened the chance of those small scale encounters.

Maps still went to the same locale, with no variation, and allowed for an overly easy coordinated assault on a soft target. Merits and Flaws of the maps can be discussed - certainly. We want things to shake out in the new experience and see if we can inspire the smaller group v smaller group experiences that we would like to see.

Your right about areas of the ettenmoors being less accessible or inaccessible than others with maps, it certainly might mean some areas were more neglected than others. Then again maps tended to take people to the key points on the maps where action was more focussed or certainly in reach of them.

Or, this could have been a chicken and egg type thing, that the maps made those points important because of the easy accessibility. Moving forward, we want to spread the fights out. We want to incentivize the exploration of the Ettenmoors and the usage of the space. It's going to happen in stages, but it will be happening.

If you were to ask my opinion on where to go from here, I think freeps being dismounted in combat is the number one.

I am reading this as following: Provide creep-side players with more utility to hit freeps at range to dismount them.

As for maps, if you dismount freeps in combat, then there would be a case to change maps from their original design a lot more:
I'd be more in favour of both sides having one or two very short cooldown maps, e.g. freeps for ec and creeps for oc, near lug, near tr. A couple of medium cooldown maps to enhance movement to key areas near TA etc, and some long cool down maps for more remote areas of the map. All this would be splendid if you would just disable horses in combat.

I did mention that maps are likely going to return - in some fashion - just not in the way that they were.

[SSG_Orion]

How would this be accomplished? Do you not think groups will work together still, in essence still raiding? If someone is getting wiped, they will always call for help, both sides get more when they can't beat who they are fighting. That and most of us love the RvR dynamic. It's been this way for 15 years, it's not broken, why are we trying to fix things that aren't broken? Unless you can't fix the lag and you're thinking this is a fix, which it isn't. That and creeps are limited with their numbers. We can't tap into a 600 person database of ppl in World Chat and get 40 or more to come out.

Groups are always going to work together. How, indeed?

First, the RvR dynamic is not something that we want to remove. In fact, I would love to lean into it a little harder. The details on the longer term adjustments are still being formulated and are not ready for general sharing. The shorter term adjustments will be discussed as we draw nearer their implementation. Suffice to say, there will be reasons for multiple groups to be active and at different locations. There will be new structure to those reasons and new incentive. Further, this incentive should appeal to both the creep-side and free-side player base regardless of their longevity in the Ettenmoors.

[Oldwiley]

Dev's posts are like buses you wait all year and then five come along at once.

I appreciate your detailed and measured responses. Implement the kind of things you are talking about here and you might draw me back down the rabbit hole; like a warg watching a battle patiently for those freeps to burn crucial cooldowns, I shall watch this space.

[Neinda]

Wherever we go from here.............I hope the changes are tested in advance before the changes are set in stone and input from those tests is actually considered. Please don't drop more changes without testing and input. Please don't drop incomplete changes with promises that everything will be ok in a year.

[Daec]

On the moors, freeps should be dismounted when they enter content, full stop : by doing this and making march the speed of a horse this issue goes away. And its a big one.

Should the same thing happen to creeps?

[Neinda]

Should the same thing happen to creeps?

In my opinion, yes. Make movement the same.

[Oldwiley]

Should the same thing happen to creeps?

The whole point being that both sides "lose out of combat" movement toggles / horses when entering combat? Ofc.

If the dev's go down the road of making ranged interrupts a solution for creeps... its one angle to approach it, might it cause other issues with balance due to a shedload of ranged interrupts being added via multiple creep classes? possibly.

But in its current form its all a bit of a mess.

[CarenC]

We are trying to move away from the raid vs. raid experience in the moors to a set of smaller groups fighting over the map, getting away from the full raid on raid madness to something that is a little more manageable for both sides.

So you want less people playing in the Moors??? or 6 or more groups running around??? This is not feasible or realistic. Its always been raid based as far as I can remember. I understand 1 or 2 leaders. enjoy smaller groups and others enjoy being raided up. But if SSG wants to make it a group based Moors then take away the option to create Raids. And with that a good number of people leaving the moors at same time. Low ranks won't beable to get into the elitist groups (since the so called elitist are the ones wanting only small groups). Its not fair to the beginning creeps or freeps to do this. Isnt that why SSG made the unused arena in he moors.

[Neinda]

So you want less people playing in the Moors??? or 6 or more groups running around??? This is not feasible or realistic. Its always been raid based as far as I can remember. I understand 1 or 2 leaders. enjoy smaller groups and others enjoy being raided up. But if SSG wants to make it a group based Moors then take away the option to create Raids. And with that a good number of people leaving the moors at same time. Low ranks won't beable to get into the elitist groups (since the so called elitist are the ones wanting only small groups). Its not fair to the beginning creeps or freeps to do this. Isnt that why SSG made the unused arena in he moors.

This is the whole problem A couple of people are forcing their vision of game play on the many. So far it has cleared PVP from the smaller servers. I guess this is what people want. PVP is limited to those who are considered acceptable and the rest of us are food for those that run the Moors. Unless those in charge decide feedback from the non elites is worthwhile, nothing will change. The low ranks won't be able to leave the GV steps or walk out of Grams. The smaller groups are probably ok for a bigger server but they really won't fit with smaller server PVP where the atmosphere is very different and the players coordinate activity for balance on both sides.