Update 16 Beta 5 Release Notes – PRELIMINARY AND NON-FINAL - BULLROARER ONLY

[infinitewhimsy]

At this point, I think we're supposed to either A swallow the bs of this time it being different when, in fact the opposite is still true or B ignore said update and come back for the next one in hopes this one is actually working correctly. The bugs,broken legacies,trait changes, I mean it really is madness to think come Monday this goes live. I'd almost bet the servers have to come down the same day or a day after when some *game breaking bug* magically surfaces and must be fixed.

*points to signature*

[Ubrot]

I think the main problem is, that there is not enought time or money or Dev-power to make all changes that are necessary.

I remember back in the first year of WoW (yes, the bad name), there was a big class overhaul for all classes. But not all together, just one or two per patch. And most players was excited about it. Maybe this would work here to? Make necessary basic changes on the game, then take one or two classes and overhaul the legacies, trait lines, trait trees, skills and add imbuement for this class.
Get the classes where they should be one by one, not band-aid all the same time halfhearted. This way it may take the rest of the year, but the result should be much better (and hopefully the feedback will be much nicer) as it is now. You could start votings which class should be the next to be updated, so it became a kind of community driven, and you can collect focused feedback on class to class base from people who care for this classes.

PS: sorry for my bad english, i have the feeling messing my post up in someway, but i can´t explain better what i want to say. I hope it is understandable.

[mr_music]

I think the main problem is, that there is not enought time or money or Dev-power to make all changes that are necessary.

I remember back in the first year of WoW (yes, the bad name), there was a big class overhaul for all classes. But not all together, just one or two per patch. And most players was excited about it. Maybe this would work here to? Make necessary basic changes on the game, then take one or two classes and overhaul the legacies, trait lines, trait trees, skills and add imbuement for this class.
Get the classes where they should be one by one, not band-aid all the same time halfhearted. This way it may take the rest of the year, but the result should be much better (and hopefully the feedback will be much nicer) as it is now. You could start votings which class should be the next to be updated, so it became a kind of community driven, and you can collect focused feedback on class to class base from people who care for this classes.

PS: sorry for my bad english, i have the feeling messing my post up in someway, but i can´t explain better what i want to say. I hope it is understandable.

Completely understandable imo, the issues I have with it would be
1 They did an entire class revamp and broke most of them with HD
2 Asking the players to decide which classes go first imo would be suicidal for Turbine (to be fair it's kind of what they did with this beta but anyway,Guards,Champs, and Hunters got stuff back), would you wait a year for your favourite class to actually get fixed?
3 I don't see how rebalancing/breaking the classes can enhance game play when clearly the other aspects of the game need serious fixing as well, (ToO, any Lvl 75 instance that got scaled and never fixed, etc). This was another area they broke and still have yet to address, ToO bad if an on-level group want to complete it.
4 We are basically being even more pigeon holed on support classes with this continued logic of 'let's lock XYZ skill to said Tree, no matter if the player wants it and puts enough points in said tree to unlock it'. I get we have trees to break support roles and *encourage* coerce us to go DPS,Tank,Heal.
5 It's been 5 Builds and not once have the biggest concerns been listened to or even acknowledged.

What hope do we have, if they haven't listened by now? I am of the opinion beta is finished, the update is basically going out as is (+/- a few minor bugs and such), but the majority of the issues will remain until, as I said a *game breaking* bug stops everything and must be fixed.

The issues of broken legacies,a half a**ed imbue system that should be delayed until EVERYTHING in regards to it actually WORKS, more mindless class changes no one asked for (yet again, we must go the Helm's Derp route to see how many more players we bleed this mini update), better rewards and itemization across the board (still hasn't been looked at), and class fixes that were asked for have gone ignored,again (how long must minstrels ask for an in-combat rez, or LM's to actually have CC on par with other classes?). I haven't even brought up the sheer laziness involved in not giving man bear pigs gear in DA, how long has this class been around now? The whole reason for Trees in the first place (way back it was said, now with TT finished we can create a new class), and yet they can't even get proper armor?

So many things are not finished,not acknowledged and obviously not on the *to-do* list this time around. It doesn't give me much hope anything will change, other then number of players logging off.

[spelunker]

I think the main problem is, that there is not enought time or money or Dev-power to make all changes that are necessary.

Problem being, the major points of contention this update are making the game worse than if they'd done nothing at all. Its not that they don't have the resources to do what people are asking for (though this is likely the case as well). Its that what they do choose to use many of their limited resources on, is a complete waste.

[chrisli]

Problem being, the major points of contention this update are making the game worse than if they'd done nothing at all. Its not that they don't have the resources to do what people are asking for (though this is likely the case as well). Its that what they do choose to use many of their limited resources on, is a complete waste.

Yes, exactly. If they don't have the resources to make the LI system actually better, they should leave it alone. It would cost less (obviously) and it would result in the game being better, even if the current LI system has flaws. There are so many things they could work on in this game, and instead they take an existing system and make it worse. I understand that limited resources are a problem, but if this sort of thing is what my VIP subscription and TP purchases are funding, I don't feel very good about supporting the game.

Honestly, I don't know why they don't ask for more feedback prior to developing these systems. They could avoid wasting resources on things that players are going to hate. Even without knowing what they wanted to do with imbuement, I could have told them I want my LIs to stay as they are - no legacy changes - and simply have the DPS scaled if the level cap were to go up. Why would I want that? Because I want less grind overall. Now, if I decide to imbue, my LIs are going to be messed up (I love how imbuing will put a red-line-only legacy on my blue-line guardian belt, and change shield rating into non-useful tactical damage...) and I'd have an insane amount grinding to do. Really, all they had to do was make it possible to scale up LIs to a new level cap, but they went in and made a whole new complicated system, and then proceeded to (apparently) not listen to player feedback. They're not getting any money from me on this system, and I plan to spend less because I am so frustrated with Turbine.

[mr_music]

Honestly, I don't know why they don't ask for more feedback prior to developing these systems. They could avoid wasting resources on things that players are going to hate. Even without knowing what they wanted to do with imbuement, I could have told them I want my LIs to stay as they are - no legacy changes - and simply have the DPS scaled if the level cap were to go up. Why would I want that? Because I want less grind overall. Now, if I decide to imbue, my LIs are going to be messed up (I love how imbuing will put a red-line-only legacy on my blue-line guardian belt, and change shield rating into non-useful tactical damage...) and I'd have an insane amount grinding to do. Really, all they had to do was make it possible to scale up LIs to a new level cap, but they went in and made a whole new complicated system, and then proceeded to (apparently) not listen to player feedback. They're not getting any money from me on this system, and I plan to spend less because I am so frustrated with Turbine.

This, if resources are indeed limited as we've been told/led to believe then why waste them on totally pointless gimmicks which only add grind and for the most part piss off the majority of players. I am going to echo (yet again again) the same sentiment of scaling DPS/Healing etc of our LI's instead of a nice new broken system, which compounds the grinds from the first one. How many more times do we the players have to say the same thing for it to sink in with Turbine? I, like you, did some testing with Imbueing when it was build 1/2 and made very detailed reasons as to why it wasn't necessary,what legacies were borked, things that upon imbue became useless, etc. I come to the same conclusion, Turbine does not read or listen to player feedback. Why should we continue paying?

The next time we have an update please don't bother with a beta as nothing was really accomplished. Please start with an actual ALPHA test AFTER you've checked the player base to see if we will swallow it, hook, line and sinker. This is what you expected from us, clearly, based on the lack of changes to any major flaws,community objections/concerns and the blatant MC icon all over the new LI panel.

[siipperi]

I think the main problem is, that there is not enought time or money or Dev-power to make all changes that are necessary.

I remember back in the first year of WoW (yes, the bad name), there was a big class overhaul for all classes. But not all together, just one or two per patch. And most players was excited about it. Maybe this would work here to? Make necessary basic changes on the game, then take one or two classes and overhaul the legacies, trait lines, trait trees, skills and add imbuement for this class.
Get the classes where they should be one by one, not band-aid all the same time halfhearted. This way it may take the rest of the year, but the result should be much better (and hopefully the feedback will be much nicer) as it is now. You could start votings which class should be the next to be updated, so it became a kind of community driven, and you can collect focused feedback on class to class base from people who care for this classes.

PS: sorry for my bad english, i have the feeling messing my post up in someway, but i can´t explain better what i want to say. I hope it is understandable.

They did exactly this in soa as well. I think they should start doing this again. Month of hunter etc.

[Ubrot]

I really love that imbued LI no longer are limited by legacy points. But yes, for me it had also works just to add a kind of level up for the existing LI and a way to change the random generated mainstats on them.
One possibility could have been to make crafted items, that change Age and Level of an LI without changing anything else (mainstats should still scale with level). The upgrade Items would be for level 60, 65, 75, 85, 95 and 100, should cost the same as making a new item of the same level and age (so 2nd ager would need Symbols of Celebrimbor and 1st Ager Elder King tokens). For exemple: [Weapon] Token of Empowerment of the 3rd age (level 65): change the age of the weapon to 3rd and set the ninimum level to use to 65. Required Character level 65 to use. Or: [Classitem] token of Upgrading of the 1st age (level 100): set the minimum level to use to level 100 and the age to first age of target [class item]. Requires level 100.
Spend legacy points would need to be resettet (because the number can change), star-lits and scrolls would be a "problem", because creating the perfect level 60 weapon and then transmute them to 100 would be much cheaper. Sulotions would be ether removing differents between scrolls and cristals (one kind for all levels) or deleting star-lits upon empowering and set all legacies to rang 4 or so.

Edit:

They did exactly this in soa as well. I think they should start doing this again. Month of hunter etc.

Good to know, i started Lotro after SoM, i think my first character hit 65 one or two months before RoI was released.

I would rather wait a year to get a fixed class than wait a year and nothing changes at all, like it it looks right now.

[Vulcwen]

They're not getting any money from me on this system, and I plan to spend less because I am so frustrated with Turbine.

You might not be spending any money, but a lot of players have already stated to at least consider just P2Wing through it, that's enough justification for Turbine to continue pushing out the system. Even if it makes the game less fun, it can mean a significant increase in revenue, also just because the "you can pay for this" is a lot more obvious in the UI now.

[ainor]

Yes, exactly. If they don't have the resources to make the LI system actually better, they should leave it alone. It would cost less (obviously) and it would result in the game being better, even if the current LI system has flaws. There are so many things they could work on in this game, and instead they take an existing system and make it worse. I understand that limited resources are a problem, but if this sort of thing is what my VIP subscription and TP purchases are funding, I don't feel very good about supporting the game.

Honestly, I don't know why they don't ask for more feedback prior to developing these systems. They could avoid wasting resources on things that players are going to hate. Even without knowing what they wanted to do with imbuement, I could have told them I want my LIs to stay as they are - no legacy changes - and simply have the DPS scaled if the level cap were to go up. Why would I want that? Because I want less grind overall. Now, if I decide to imbue, my LIs are going to be messed up (I love how imbuing will put a red-line-only legacy on my blue-line guardian belt, and change shield rating into non-useful tactical damage...) and I'd have an insane amount grinding to do. Really, all they had to do was make it possible to scale up LIs to a new level cap, but they went in and made a whole new complicated system, and then proceeded to (apparently) not listen to player feedback. They're not getting any money from me on this system, and I plan to spend less because I am so frustrated with Turbine.

This is exactly how I feel.

I don't think this system was developed mainly to improve the LI system. The main reason why it's designed like this is so that Turbine can make more money. The old LI-system was designed as it is for the very same reason. But since people know that it's absolutely pointless to put any effort or resources in a LI if you are between level 50-99, they had to come up with a new system that people can't resist. A lot of people will buy MC, TP or other things from the store with real money. Turbine knows this. They are a company. no1 is to make money -nothing wrong with that! But maybe they went too far this time. We will see.

It's quite obvious actually. For the same reason they won't "listen" to the community. There was a very interesting post about this in this thread:
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...t=#post7357711

The sad thing is that this might have a very negative influence, further interfering with class design and balance. And this is in a game that already suffers from very serious issues that should have been fixed before developing a new system placed on top of the old one. (e.g. Old LI system -maybe most criticized part of the game over the years, warsteed rubberbanding -even worse in the new regions + lack of info in the tooltips, Beorning, Skill trees -still with bugs and completely useless traits, support classes ignored + dps'ers and heal'ers get boosted = boring game, skill lag, broken animations, too much frustrating RNG and rep grind -sometimes with rewards not even desirable, ignored crafting, very serious balance issues within instances, between classes and in mounted combat, broken loot table and too long period of time with too much solo grind and no new instances. The last two might be the main reason why people leave this game imo.)

But, let's not forget, there has been positive things too! The new regions and the whole game is beautifully designed, the epic story is great, Pelargir and Tarlangs Crown was fun and very well done, the switch from rng to barter for EB's jewellery was a step in the right direction, on Monday we get new instances and best news ever was servers going back to Europe! I know most ppl don't agree but I actually liked both mounted combat and EB's a lot, despite the rubberbanding and bugs. It's a pity with all the problems described above because this game has so much potential.

Turbine, would you please consider fixing these two things, if you haven't already.

- If we imbue a LI that is level 70 (that we used a lot of resources to get to perfection), and some legacies on this item will be changed after ibueing, let us choose what legacy we want instead of the old one, even if it's just a one-time option. Don't make us pay MC or TP for this. Plz smooth this out a bit.

- Make it possible to disable levelling (IXP) on each legacy (separately). If a legacy is maxed, don't make it continue to absorb IXP. If all legacies but one is on max, all the IXP should of course go into that single legacy that still needs IXP.

Thank you for reading.

/a

[Rozalinde]

I think the main problem is, that there is not enought time or money or Dev-power to make all changes that are necessary.

I remember back in the first year of WoW (yes, the bad name), there was a big class overhaul for all classes. But not all together, just one or two per patch. And most players was excited about it. Maybe this would work here to? Make necessary basic changes on the game, then take one or two classes and overhaul the legacies, trait lines, trait trees, skills and add imbuement for this class.
Get the classes where they should be one by one, not band-aid all the same time halfhearted. This way it may take the rest of the year, but the result should be much better (and hopefully the feedback will be much nicer) as it is now. You could start votings which class should be the next to be updated, so it became a kind of community driven, and you can collect focused feedback on class to class base from people who care for this classes.

PS: sorry for my bad english, i have the feeling messing my post up in someway, but i can´t explain better what i want to say. I hope it is understandable.

This is the most excellent suggestion I've seen on the forums in a long while. Yes please!!

Though I would say, rather than "overhaul" each class (connotation brings to mind unnecessary changes for the sake of change), just have the bulk of dev energies funneled into really looking at each class individually in a sustained, concerted effort. No band-aid fixes. It feels like no one has really looked at minstrels in a long time, so pardon me if the thought of such attention (even if I have to wait a few months for it) seems so attractive. We've been asking for certain fixes/updates to the class so often and so long... this would be an opportunity for Turbine to finally get around to this "in the weeds" class stuff.

I disagree on voting. That pits class vs. class. Just make it random.

[Intolerance]

What everyone needs to realize is that since being taken over by Warner Brothers, everything they do in this game...all changes to class, LIs, content, gear, etc.....

ALL of it is being designed with the specific purpose of separating you from more of your money.

That's it.

That's all folks.

Making content for the sake of furthering the story line is over.

Making content for the sake of improving classes is over.

Making content to appeal to veteran players is over.

Fixing bugs/animations that adversely affect game play is over.

They just want your $$$, the more of it the better.

Remember there are WB shareholders who, every meeting, say "GET MORE FOR LESS!!!".

That, AND ONLY THAT, is what drives this game now.

The love of money.

Neither lore...nor love of Middle Earth...nor developing a great game...and certainly not spending one red cent more than they have to.

Simply the love of money.

They've never understood that PVMPers are the lifeblood and hardcore base of this game, and content has reflected as much.

They also seem to have forgotten that raiders made up the other side of their dedicated player base, and content has reflected as much.

Exhibiting the ability to make the correlation between declining player populations and sub-par development/minimal investment seems beyond them.

They simply want new ways to increase the grind...and yet offer you ways to "just buy it instead".

Greed, laziness, apathy, and obtuseness do not a great game make.

"...I know money is the root of all evil
Do funny things to some people
Give me a nickel, brother can you spare a dime
Money can drive some people out of their minds..."

Money is the only thing that drives this game.