@Cordovan @Devs - Original Challenger being removed in new raid: Please reconsider (T3)

[Hephburz-2]

LoTRO has very little of competion in terms of PvE raids, but every year almost every raiding kinship gathers their members to come back and fight for this title, which players value more then anything in PvE content.

(Every 'existing' raiding kinship, and no, not all of them race for the challenger title. Most raiders have moved on because they know Lotro cannot offer high calibre raids anymore, so who is left to compete really?).

Original Challenger has large impact on raiding community and please reconsider to add it into this raid, or in different form of displaying respect to server first.

(No one displays respect to original challengers, if anything they are ridiculed and being accused of exploiting. It has no large impact except to cause further in-fighting).

Original Challenger being removed in the new raid is not a good idea for a healthy progression of the new raid.

(It's a perfectly healthy progression, we didn't have original challenger for Rift, for DN, for Watcher, for BG... I don't recall the raid progression there failing?).

If you are afraid that someone will transfer to other server for the title, make the title server bound (meaning if someone transfers he can't claim it).

(Too difficult to implement).

If you don't like Original Challenger the way it is, create a new title.

(They have. Duh).

--

Any raid that has been on the open bullroarer does NOT deserve an original challenger title.

[NeoBasilisk]

Can we pls shut up about transfering? It's starting to frustrate the hell out of me. Kins have transfered for titles since freaking Sauromon, never have people even been slightly outraged till now for some odd reason.

People doing something stupid in the past does not mean it is not still stupid.

[Marxlne]

"Original" titles by servers would be so pointless at this point. I'm glad they decided to remove them. Lets be honest, with such a small team (like SSG has), who has zero capabilities to internally test higher tier group content themselves correctly, it would be absurd to give out such titles.
What they should do although, as they are so dependent on actual player-base feedback, is maybe to give out some exclusive titles and bonus LOTRO Points to players/kins who are actually testing group content on Bullroarer and reporting actual exploits and problems with new content.
Seeing literally zero feedback in Anvil forum after the last BR build just yet again confirms my doubts that players who actually have found exploits and stuff in BR are just keeping them to themselves for personal gain.

[Smapper]

People doing something stupid in the past does not mean it is not still stupid.

Yes that's true, but in the past no one every brought up the idea of getting rid of the title because of it and no one had ever raged so much over it, why is it such a big concern now?

[Arnenna]

LoTRO has very little of competion in terms of PvE raids, but every year almost every raiding kinship gathers their members to come back and fight for this title, which players value more then anything in PvE content.
Original Challenger has large impact on raiding community and please reconsider to add it into this raid, or in different form of displaying respect to server first.
Original Challenger being removed in the new raid is not a good idea for a healthy progression of the new raid.

If you are afraid that someone will transfer to other server for the title, make the title server bound (meaning if someone transfers he can't claim it)
If you don't like Original Challenger the way it is, create a new title.

There can be a new title, displaying that this particular group of players has completed the raid server first, or sort of achievement (deed) like in WoW progression of realm first. Removing the OC title will eliminate the last small feeling of achievement lotro has in term of competitive raiding because there will not be any difference between a kin who finished it first and a kin who finished it last as long as you got it during that "time limit"

EDIT: i am only talking about tier 3 raid.

For the majority of players, the achievement is completing the raid, and that's as far as that goes. The real achievement to completing the raid in a race scenario (competitive raiding), is to complete it first but without a myriad of practise runs on BR. That's where any OC title should live, and until that can happen, it shouldn't exist. Unfortunately, SSG have no choice other than to let players play it it in advance if they wish to avoid being slammed for letting any bugs through to live. It's not really a bug finding exercise for some, it's getting the raid down in advance (with or without any found exploits). Therein enter - the drama. Until they find a way to prevent any player that tested on BR from obtaining a challenger title, that's never going to change.

As for server transfers, yes, there was an easy fix for that, and that was to add the server name to the end of the title. Yes, it would still mean players could transfer to get a title, but honestly, I don't think anyone really would, given their title name would flash like a beacon alerting everyone of how they got it, when they land back on their home server.

Will this new way of handling titles eliminate the drama? No, I don't think it will. It will create new drama, not remove it. Now the drama will be about the real challengers (perceived), versus the not real ones (perceived), and just like before, it will hit the forums, in game and external sites. Ironically, the real challengers (Actual), aren't usually even a part of it. They completed the raid a long time after its release, without any practise on BR and long after any bugs were removed. We never hear from them, because they are happy with their real sense of achievement.

[Justapvpdude]

Personally, I've always found the most idiotic people to be the ones that use LI exploits on captains to get OC titles, but that's just me

My man Bramble, long time no seen.

[Estelrandir]

Bosses 3 and 4 in Thikil Gundu are the exact same on t2 and t3, with the exception of morale/damage.

That´s not true. Both of them have 1 new mechanic.

[Fasin]

Besides, everyone knows that most people who playtest the raid don't even do it to actually test it, but to find exploits they can use later when it goes live. Personally, I ran bosses 3 and 4 only once on BR, in a t1 pug that I saw, and found an exploit on each of the two bosses. We weren't even looking for them, we were just playing through the raid to see what it's like. How is it that these weren't found by people running the raid constantly on BR, but were found and reported by a random PUG instead?

Or, the kinships that are raiding (the ones that find these bugs) use the report bug feature. I have reported every single one of the exploits my kin has discovered. There is literally a button called "report a bug" in game.

[H3llsJ4nitor]

LOL

LI captain exploit?
Feel free to explain that to me oO

And get a banned for explaining it? HAHAHA

Don't worry, Cali has told us and shown us the screenies - Thought you would've learnt your lesson after the new instances came live and you went on holiday for 30 days

[CaerArianrhod]

Sarcasm?

Yes, for sure.

Bosses 3 and 4 in Thikil Gundu are the exact same on t2 and t3, [..]. Boss 2 is the same exact mechanics, [...] Boss 1 is the same, [...]

I know you know all this, but I still feel the need to spell it out in case some reading the thread aren't aware. There is no great difference in mechanics between tiers 2 and 3 in the new instances. Why would the raid be any different? When they created t3 instances, it wasn't to replace challenge modes like we used to have, but to just put less effort into designing mechanics while still trying to make things "difficult" by having them hit harder and take longer.

That is the point. T3 is just more annoying trash fight. It just takes longer.

[xxSniperxx]

Can we pls shut up about transfering? It's starting to frustrate the hell out of me. Kins have transfered for titles since freaking Sauromon, never have people even been slightly outraged till now for some odd reason.

Actually people have been outraged by those things since level 50 cap, except that those events happened so long ago that PEOPLE STOPPED CARING BECAUSE IT'S JUST A DUMB GAME. Nobody remembers the player outrage in the Helegrod or Gortheron raids, both of which had original titles. Does anyone here remember the names of those players or those kinships? No. Does anyone care? No.

So all this effort to limit drama is meaningless, this is LOTRO, a game with a stale endgame and a toxic playerbase. Trust me, these urchins will find a way to create drama no matter what. The drama is actually more entertaining than the game itself. If you don't believe me, just look at all of the great entertainment in freepside and creepside OOC over the years.
Drama > Content.

[maartena]

The drama was created not because people "transferred to get title" but simply because people "exploited" in order to get those titles. I don't think getting rid of the title will in anyway fix the problem you see since there will still be people who exploit and get the server first or server second title in these forums. You literally have the solution for the wrong problem.

There will always be people exploiting, and there will always be people that will CLAIM that the group who got it first exploited. As for transferring, it did happen: A group transferred from one server to another (I can't remember which server now, but it was a big whoop on the forums as well back then) because another raid kin had gotten the title first.... so they moved to another server, got the title there, and that pissed of the prime raiding kin on THAT server to no avail because they were working on getting the title, and would have a good chance to get it.

As far as exploiting goes, it can be difficult to prove. Claims will be made left and right, people saying that they HAD to exploit because this and that, and mud will be thrown all around.... and that will cause even more drama. SSG can then decide to take away the titles, but they would have had some excellent proof that an exploit was used, and that proof isn't always easy to supply. In some cases, the raid group might not be 100% aware that an exploit is being used, as sometimes "working as intended" is walking a fine line with "exploit", especially in cases where one tank pulls a mob behind a wall or something while keeping aggro, or something like that.

Knowing the forums and knowing the Lotro community as it is right now (and maybe this is true for most games....) keeping the title is going to cause just as much drama as it did before, with a bunch of people pissed off that someone exploited, a bunch of people pissed off some kin transferred onto their server and grabbed the title, and a bunch of other pissed off claiming that they did everything by the book and got robbed of their title because of exploit claims and whatnot. No matter what, people will be pissed off, and there will be drama.

[Smapper]

As for transferring, it did happen: A group transferred from one server to another (I can't remember which server now, but it was a big whoop on the forums as well back then) because another raid kin had gotten the title first.... so they moved to another server, got the title there, and that pissed of the prime raiding kin on THAT server to no avail because they were working on getting the title, and would have a good chance to get it.

The server was landroval, people transferred to landroval and took that title.
Who are you talking about though....no one in landroval came even close to getting that title. The kin who transferred got top 5 completion.

(thread was closed jan 24)

[xxSniperxx]

There will always be people exploiting, and there will always be people that will CLAIM that the group who got it first exploited. As for transferring, it did happen: A group transferred from one server to another (I can't remember which server now, but it was a big whoop on the forums as well back then) because another raid kin had gotten the title first.... so they moved to another server, got the title there, and that pissed of the prime raiding kin on THAT server to no avail because they were working on getting the title, and would have a good chance to get it.

As far as exploiting goes, it can be difficult to prove. Claims will be made left and right, people saying that they HAD to exploit because this and that, and mud will be thrown all around.... and that will cause even more drama. SSG can then decide to take away the titles, but they would have had some excellent proof that an exploit was used, and that proof isn't always easy to supply. In some cases, the raid group might not be 100% aware that an exploit is being used, as sometimes "working as intended" is walking a fine line with "exploit", especially in cases where one tank pulls a mob behind a wall or something while keeping aggro, or something like that.

Knowing the forums and knowing the Lotro community as it is right now (and maybe this is true for most games....) keeping the title is going to cause just as much drama as it did before, with a bunch of people pissed off that someone exploited, a bunch of people pissed off some kin transferred onto their server and grabbed the title, and a bunch of other pissed off claiming that they did everything by the book and got robbed of their title because of exploit claims and whatnot. No matter what, people will be pissed off, and there will be drama.

It's funny because the kinship on Landroval that was outraged at having their title stolen were shown to have used the shadow exploit on their boss 1/2 T2C kill screenshots. Re-read that locked thread, someone else from Landroval called them out but I don't remember if those posts were deleted for "naming and shaming".

So exploiters mad about having their title taken away? Seems to me like they didn't deserve that title to begin with. But obviously when they complained about their title, they oh-so-conveniently forgot to mention that they were exploiting. The kinship that took their title actually didn't exploit, they cleared the raid on their first try on Landroval because they just had better players and already knew how to do the raid. (You can just watch their Youtube video) HOWEVER, the kin that did exploit shadow accused the latter of exploiting because in their mind, it was "inconceivable" that someone would clear the raid before them. What a joke, honestly.

This has less to do with OC title, and more to do with the fact that the players who are left in LOTRO are just toxic beyond belief.

[maartena]

It's funny because the kinship on Landroval that was outraged at having their title stolen were shown to have used the shadow exploit on their boss 1/2 T2C kill screenshots. Re-read that locked thread, someone else from Landroval called them out but I don't remember if those posts were deleted for "naming and shaming".

This has less to do with OC title, and more to do with the fact that the players who are left in LOTRO are just toxic beyond belief.

Maybe that toxic atmosphere alone is reason enough to not do the OC challenger this time? I don't know... the fact that there were "locked threads" about all this tells me that tempers were flaring, people were upset, and there was a bunch of drama..... whether people used exploits or not, whether SSG did not do the right thing by taking the title away (mind you, a screenshot isn't proof an exploit was used in GAINING the title, it might only serve as circumstantial evidence that it was used in a raid at SOME POINT), or just because people are upset about a kin getting the title before them.

Considering threads needed to be locked and claims of exploits were made..... maybe that was reason enough to not do it this time.

[jomanjy]

i don't mind removing the OC title but i would like to see any kind of reward for the kin that finishes the raid first on server or at least world first even. maybe add special portrait or give some lotro points to the players who finished it world first or anything rewarding, otherwise it would be sad if you finished world first and you'd still have the exact same reward as the kin who finished it last.

[ColMcStacky]

It's funny because the kinship on Landroval that was outraged at having their title stolen were shown to have used the shadow exploit on their boss 1/2 T2C kill screenshots. Re-read that locked thread, someone else from Landroval called them out but I don't remember if those posts were deleted for "naming and shaming".

So exploiters mad about having their title taken away? Seems to me like they didn't deserve that title to begin with. But obviously when they complained about their title, they oh-so-conveniently forgot to mention that they were exploiting. The kinship that took their title actually didn't exploit, they cleared the raid on their first try on Landroval because they just had better players and already knew how to do the raid. (You can just watch their Youtube video) HOWEVER, the kin that did exploit shadow accused the latter of exploiting because in their mind, it was "inconceivable" that someone would clear the raid before them. What a joke, honestly.

This has less to do with OC title, and more to do with the fact that the players who are left in LOTRO are just toxic beyond belief.

As someone from that Landy raid group, there's a few things off here, but it's pretty close to accurate.

For starters, we aren't a kin, just a group of friends from 5-6 kins. And one of the reasons we were so slow is because we started raiding late. I don't think we even started until 2 weeks to a month after the raid was released because of real life schedules and such.

The things people were saying about our group exploiting would probably be considered a half-truth really. For bosses 1 and 2 t2c, we didn't use any, intentional or otherwise. On our first boss 3 t2 (no challenge) completion, one of our Minis (the one who posted the completion screenshot) had a bug happen without his knowledge that eliminated his shadow debuff while being under the light limit. None of us knew it at the time, him included, until it was brought up on the forums. I would argue that this doesn't really matter that much, as it happened during the easiest boss possible when not doing challenge, Fingar t2. I'm sure others would feel differently about it, but I can promise you it was not an intentional exploit, otherwise we would've used a different screenshot (at least 2/3 of the group took screenshots at every first completion).

I will say that I don't regret it happening though, as it made the raids themselves a lot more fun because of that bug. We already had a very light atmosphere while raiding, joking and bantering constantly during every raid session the entire way through, and this just added fuel to the fire, leading to some pretty hysterical moments.

Whether Faded exploited or not, I have no idea, nor do I care in the least. I just think it's rather poor sportsmanship for them to have transferred to Landy and taken our title, especially since it was only about a week before we completed our first challenger run. If they were going to do this, they should have at least waited for it to be obvious that no Landy raid groups were actively trying for the title. It is what it is though. The past is the past, and complaining about it now isn't going to change anything.

I'm not aware of all the accusations or trolling that was going on back and forth because frankly I couldn't care less about the drama involved in raiding, I simply want to run the content, so I can't comment on that.



All that being said, I'm pretty indifferent as to whether OC titles are available on each server or not. I just think a worldwide title is rather pointless, as different servers will have different calibers of raid groups simply due to the differing amounts of runs being completed. On Landy for example, you'd be lucky to complete a t2 Thikil-Gundu within 2-3 hours if you pug it. I highly doubt this is the case on Arkenstone or elsewhere, as most of the competent players on Landy have transferred away over the years or stopped playing entirely. As such, it is much, much slower to actually get a character completely geared on Landy than it would be on any other server. On Landy, you have to know enough people to organize runs yourself, and it's a simple fact that ever since the Legendary™ servers launched, we have been hemorrhaging people even at prime time. I mean entire kinships seem to have vanished once Arnor and Ithil came online.