Dev Diary Feedback: Solving Problems and Making Friends, Parts I & II

[Clover]

In today’s update we find Matt "Scenario" Elliott getting back to his roots as he takes us through the process of creating the new crafting instances. “As the development of Moria concluded, I found myself yearning to take a temporary step away from managing the World Design Team and back towards my foundations as a live designer. This is the story of how I spent my four weeks after Moria went live.”

Read more from Matt in Part I and Part II of his Developer Diary and post your comments here!

[Linduin]

Aside from new lands, this is the feature I'm most looking forward to with Book 7. Log on at the wrong time and resource harvesting can be a little too competitive for me. I like to feel I'm in common cause with my fellow players, not racing to the next node ahead of the other farmers. Well done!

[LilFeet]

Good job Scenario!

These crafting instances sound like they will be alot of fun, I'm looking forward to trying them.

[Banaticus]

Merrevail, Cave-claw/Deep-claw and Gredbyg deeds are fully supported by these instances

Bravo! Good work.

[MithrilSoul]

Nicely written. It's kind of neat to see dev diaries that not only talk about the finished product (which, honestly, this one does only a little bit of) but also talk about the whole mindset and thought process that went into creating it.

Can't wait to try 'em out!

[Rokmai]

Very nice post. I just hope I can get to 58 before the patch comes out...

[swisskdl]

I found myself yearning to take a temporary step away from managing the World Design Team

I'm guessing this yearning started when Fantus joined your team right?

These look fun. You mentioned in the article you didn't gate them by profession, but why would a prospector want to run the wood node ones or scholar ones? Just for the random rewards and slayer deeds? Or will we still be able to gather the wood and scholar materials for our alts?

[LagunaD]

From what I can tell Scenario does great stuff, although I have to say the description of these instances (so far) hasn't really hooked me.

One of the things that keeps Vastin's IA instances tolerable even after a hundred or more runs is that very few of them are straight-up "grind through X trash mobs, kill boss, gather loot" affairs. Not all, but most have some wrinkle that makes you think a bit about what you are doing. Perhaps the new instances will have some similar twists, but if so the Dev Diary doesn't mention it. The fact that you may have to grind through different types of mobs is good, I suppose, but from the examples given it sounds like pretty much the standard fare of everything we have killed hundreds or thousands of already, so again it is hard to get too excited. It would be more fun if the mobs exhibited something resembling intelligent or organized behavior beyond what we see in landscape trash; the fact that goblins have a few special attacks, and merrevail have bats and stuns is (again) not something that will surprise or excite anyone who has made it to level 60.

As for the rewards, it is hard to tell much from the information provided, but I worry it will crater the market for crafting mats in the same way the daily mirror quests have flooded the market with free potions.

Any developer attention to crafting is of course a welcome change, but at the moment the list of non-consumable T6 items that are worth crafting can be counted on one hand with a finger or two to spare. Hopefully that will change in Book 7 as well.

[ScrappyTheGreat]

I think this sounds fun. Hopefully it will be fun. Of course, we won't know for sure till book 7 releases on.... what's the date again?

I like the idea of deep claws being in these instances. I'll be able to farm hides along with my wood branches. Merrevail and goblins drop vendor trash mostly, but it can be a decent money gainer. Any chance the merrevail and goblins in the crafting instances have a higher probability to drop 2nd age items? (wishful thinking)

If the "Delicious Oats and Honey" recipe is the *big* reward I get after killing the boss, I'm going to be... disturbed!!!

Also, I'd like for my lvl 60 woodsman to mine ore for my lvl 51 armourer. Will I be able to do that in the 2 prospecting instances? Or do I need to level my armourer up to 58+?

[Tawariel]

These new instances sound very appealing - well done!

[uadan]

Thanks, It was enjoyable following you through the design process. Now how come you did not do this before .
The first thing I though of was why so high level? Although I'm sure there were lots of things taken into acount. It would be nice to have these for the various tradeskill levels.

[Scenario]

These look fun. You mentioned in the article you didn't gate them by profession, but why would a prospector want to run the wood node ones or scholar ones? Just for the random rewards and slayer deeds? Or will we still be able to gather the wood and scholar materials for our alts?

The quests are meant to be the driving incentive to run the instances that you don't have the professions for. You can also use the spaces to work on your deeds.

Thanks, It was enjoyable following you through the design process. Now how come you did not do this before .
The first thing I though of was why so high level? Although I'm sure there were lots of things taken into acount. It would be nice to have these for the various tradeskill levels.

It would definitely have been nice to hit all the tiers with these - but I only had 4 weeks, not 24 Perhaps for a future update.

One of the things that keeps Vastin's IA instances tolerable even after a hundred or more runs is that very few of them are straight-up "grind through X trash mobs, kill boss, gather loot" affairs. Not all, but most have some wrinkle that makes you think a bit about what you are doing. Perhaps the new instances will have some similar twists, but if so the Dev Diary doesn't mention it.

Vastin's goals were a good deal more focused than mine - I wanted as much variability in the monsters themselves where as his instances are meant to be much shorter, less variable and more focused. I also have very little experience with the quest system so for my part it was best to start small while learning and then try something more ambitious in the future.

[Alakranus]

Great diary, look forward to checking these instances out!

[Vikarr]

I really enjoyed reading that. It's nice to know what the Dev was thinking.


It takes a brave man to put his thoughts to ink.

[Scenario]

Nicely written. It's kind of neat to see dev diaries that not only talk about the finished product (which, honestly, this one does only a little bit of) but also talk about the whole mindset and thought process that went into creating it.

Can't wait to try 'em out!

I'm also just now realizing this is just part 1 of my dev diary. So... enjoy it - more to come!

[spiritintelligencia]

These sound great and I am looking forward to these small instances. I have been getting alot of enjoyment out of the Item Advancement instances and have been hoping for more of this type of content...

Which leads to my question... You wrote on page 2:

"While doing this, I found that I (and many other players as well) was getting an incredible amount of enjoyment in the repeatable Item Advancement instances"

Why is the re-running of Library of Steel being called a minor exploit and getting changed?

If so many people are spending their time running instances like LoS, and I assume the new crafting instances will attract these people too, why change them to require an infused adamant on every entry?

It seems that no harm is being done. The time spent is not out-of-proportion with reward given (IXP, chance of 2nd Age drops).

If someone has time to log on for a half hour in the evening and runs LoS twice, why create obstacles? Although I can see why you created restrictions in the crafting instances...

Thank you!

[Scenario]

Why is the re-running of Library of Steel being called a minor exploit and getting changed?

If so many people are spending their time running instances like LoS, and I assume the new crafting instances will attract these people too, why change them to require an infused adamant on every entry?

It seems that no harm is being done. The time spent is not out-of-proportion with reward given (IXP, chance of 2nd Age drops).

If someone has time to log on for a half hour in the evening and runs LoS twice, why create obstacles? Although I can see why you created restrictions in the crafting instances...

I don't want to get too deep into defining exploits and what not so I'll just comment on the aspect of my diary you commented on.

My daily play experience for a while was a great big loop of Moria, hitting all the Mirrors and then capping my evening on completions of each solo IA instance. I had a lot of fun completing those runs. My comment was not made considering individuals who let the instance fail to farm it.

The fail-retry behavior was a detrimental pattern-of-play that made the servers cranky (sometimes very much so) which is why that issue is being addressed. That all said - this thread isn't about the IA instances beyond them inspiring my efforts.

[spiritintelligencia]

The fail-retry behavior was a detrimental pattern-of-play that made the servers cranky (sometimes very much so) which is why that issue is being addressed. That all said - this thread isn't about the IA instances beyond them inspiring my efforts.

That seems a completely valid answer and I appreciate you taking the time... I don't think anyone wants to participate in any gameplay that actually effects the servers in such a way.

Edit: Ironically, my uneducated theory was that Turbine would WANT people locked up in tiny instances and that it used LESS resources.... And that since, large-scale world content is expensive to design and, as you said, gets visited once, then the small repeatables are a more efficient use of resources. Shows how much I know!

Thank you again! Looking forward...

[Joe-Phi]

Scenario ... nice diary. Interesting.

I am looking forward reading Part II ... do you get into details how you forced your group of world-builder-slaves to do their very best to create the most awesome instances in the whole game ... yours?

[Inarion]

Enjoyed the read and looking forward to the new crafting instances. Gives me something to do other than trying to find a group to finish Volume I quests.

[Benucio]

...If so many people are spending their time running instances like LoS, and I assume the new crafting instances will attract these people too, why change them to require an infused adamant on every entry?

Do these new crafting instances require a key to enter, such as infused gems?
If there are 6 new instances, in addition to the 6 existing IXP instances, I would surely run out of gems very quickly.

[Locklear93]

That seems a completely valid answer and I appreciate you taking the time... I don't think anyone wants to participate in any gameplay that actually effects the servers in such a way.

Edit: Ironically, my uneducated theory was that Turbine would WANT people locked up in tiny instances and that it used LESS resources.... And that since, large-scale world content is expensive to design and, as you said, gets visited once, then the small repeatables are a more efficient use of resources. Shows how much I know!

At the risk of mentioning "That Other Game" as an example, the way WoW's servers are set up, instances run on separate physical hardware, and can overfill or crash independent of the world itself. That's why when WoW gets overfull and something is going on that attracts a LOT of people to enter instances, when you try to zone in, you get "No instances available."

I'm making a presumption here, that LotRO's architecture is similar in that one respect. If it is, having people fail the instance means they're constantly holding an instance open. If lots of people do that, and lots of people are trying to play it "right," too, instance servers fill up. Since (normally) the world servers are meant to house the majority of players, instance servers are likely not as well equipped for that kind of sustained traffic. They're equipped for people to get in, do their thing, and go back to the world at large.

(Again, this is based on presumption from how other MMOs have handled instancing, mainly WoW, and could be completely incorrect in Turbine's server architecture.)

[ArtphulDodger]

Loved the diary and looking forward to this so much. I am so tired of racing for nodes in the alley between Orc Watch and Grand Stair.
Question - Will the nodes have the same chance for Mithril Flakes? And will Foresters and scholars ever find a random flake in their nodes?
(they use them too ...why should prospectors get all the love?

now if I could only craft something T6 that players would want...

[Scenario]

Question - Will the nodes have the same chance for Mithril Flakes? And will Foresters and scholars ever find a random flake in their nodes?

These instances use the same resource nodes as those found on landscape. What you can get on landscape is what you can get in the instances (including the Rich versions of each node type).

[Russano]

Thank you for the information, Secnario, but I have a few concerns. First, I'm not quite sure how the lock system is supposed to work.

• Multi-stage locks allow players to spread an instance over multiple shorter play sessions or recover from unforseen events such as disconnects
• Multi-stage locks will allow un-harvested resources in a stage to disappear upon instance shutdown. These instances do have a generous shutdown time, so disconnected/crashed-out player should have ample time to re-enter the space and collect their resources

I've never really encountered the lock system in LotRO, so perhaps this is clear to everyone else, but it seems contradictory to me. The locks allow you to spread the instance out over multiple play sessions, but unharvested resources will disappear once the instance shuts down: it certainly sounds an instance will shut down between play sessions.

Is it simply impossible to keep the state of the various nodes "in memory" between sessions, so you have to track the locks instead? I guess this isn't a problem if the resources are easy to get to, but otherwise it seems like anyone who has difficulty getting through a stage and leaves it for later will also lose out on the resources of that stage.

I'm also a bit nervous about this bumper crop of repeatable instances. It reminds me of the various Olthoi pincers, Eater jaws and what have you that could be turned in for XP on a timer from back in Asheron's Call. Now I certainly turned in many a body part for fun and profit over the years, but I noticed that after a while it became almost a chore: time to go back to the Olthoi mines, as it were. I cannot access Moria, so I'm not sure how the IA instances feel. But the more such things are added to the game, the more I worry about playing LotRO becoming a series of work-like chores. I hope that will not be the case here.

Finally, I'm sad to see that these instances will cover only levels 58 and 60. Not only does that continue the trend of ignoring those of us who don't have the expansion, but it seems a bit absurd to focus two whole sets of instances on such a short range of the leveling spread. I understand that demand for the newest resources is abnormally high in the wake of Moria's release, but lower tiers of crafting still exist and they need resources too. I dread the thought of having to dredge the Trollshaws for Dwarf Iron again; I'd love to try out some new instances with the chance at getting some DI as part of the reward.

I understand that Book 7 makes the hill smaller, but it's still a lot of work to get to the top and it would be nice if the trip there felt like it was half the fun rather than just a lot of paperwork we need to fill out.

Anyway, those are my concerns. But I like the idea, and it's always nice to see how things work behind the scenes.

-R