Rise of Isengard: Dev Diary Feedback: Stat Updates

[solur]

to: Captains asking for Vitality-based offense (including my kinmate :P)

Why not ask for Will-based offense like RKs, Minstrels, and LMs have so that you can build your offense and outgoing healing with a single stat like... RKs, Minstrels, and LMs can? Then you'll be in the same boat as the other healing classes in that regard, and in the same boat as every other class in the sense that you'll have to choose between boosting your damage or your morale.

Focus on Will (and Fate) can be indeed an alternative solution with a proper stat conversion. Where Will act like Might and Fate like Agi. So Captains can gain melee offence and melee crit from their will/fate gear.

An alternative solution is moving the whole class toward its melee aspect and I mean healing skills based off the damage done. Example: Valiant Strike deals X dmg and heal your nearby fellowship members for 20% of the damage done. In this way even Agi will count for better heals (a crited VS will heal more).

Without a change I can just see the overbudget CPT gear or the class will fail on scaling.
Already now 5 stats are not so easy to manage.

[witchking782]

No, that would be horrible, it would kill the solo captain who doesn't stack will. And for the last time (not really) Captains are not leaders, they don't impose their will on anyone. And the buff/will related suggestion, again, just no.

honestly there are multiple ways to improve things and keep it capt style friendly WHICH SHOULD BE MORE MELEE based combat.

-Combine the crit rating from both agi and fate total stats and give that to both melee crit and tact crit and put tactical offense to might.
-Change melee offense from might to Vitality/Will that can free up might.
-Change might so that it gives melee crit and will gives tact crit which can free up agi and fate.
-Change out going healing and tact offense into either vit or might.

All of these can be lore friendly as well, they have multiple solutions but won't even touch our class for some odd reason.

[bennyw2784]

Not so much liking the burglar changes. Might is built strongly into most 'melee' oriented gear at the moment. I often find Agility paired with stuff like Will/Fate ICPR and/or Ranged Crit at the moment. Well as a burg the stats I will now want are 'Agi, Vit, Might', the Will/Fate type build hunters desire for higher power pools are not generally something burglars work for.

Will Might still contribute to our melee defense?

Will our stats on our class specific items be re-worked so as to increase agility? As it is I can much more easily cap might than Agi. Things like Rangers token of battle are a perfect example. It's currently a Melee-centric piece, and thus has 21 might/vit and 16 agi. Why shaft the agility on this piece? Champs/Burgs/Cappies/Guards/Wardens find that Agility contributes much less to their b/p/e than what a similar +5 might contributes to their overall dmg output and thus desire the +5 might more than the +5 agility.

It seems most stats on most items are heavily weighted toward +fate/will/power for the tactical classes, and +Might/Vit/Morale for the melee classes, but the pieces that are heavily +agility have a hodge podge of +icpr/+power/+will/+fate.

Seems like a hackneyed change that really isn't necessary, we're a melee class, continue to let might be our primary +melee offense stat.

[Waxe]

honestly there are multiple ways to improve things and keep it capt style friendly WHICH SHOULD BE MORE MELEE based combat.

-Combine the crit rating from both agi and fate total stats and give that to both melee crit and tact crit and put tactical offense to might.
-Change melee offense from might to Vitality/Will that can free up might.
-Change might so that it gives melee crit and will gives tact crit which can free up agi and fate.
-Change out going healing and tact offense into either vit or might.

All of these can be lore friendly as well, they have multiple solutions but won't even touch our class for some odd reason.

Thats exactly my point, Will is not the answer.

[Idiotvillage]

I am very pleased to see the removal of the caps on base stats, it will provide everyone with more flexibility as far as gear choices go, people will have more incentive to run instances and raids because gear will offer genuine upgrades.

[Elsydeon]

Thats exactly my point, Will is not the answer.

The best answer would be to either use Might for Captains and be consistent with other melee heavy armor classes, or use Vitality as the offensive stat for Captains that is found on most heavy armor thus makes itemization easier.

The rational on why I believe this:
While Will sounds nice on paper separately as it would help healing and our power pools, itemization makes it hard to come on generic heavy armor as a person cannot rely only on gear created specifically for their class. This would be especially true when leveling up, as there would be no way to get the class specific gear in the first place if it requires gear being worn that does not exist in game. The same issue occurs with Fate. Agility is not appropriate for a heavy armor melee class to specialize in.

Thus the realistic choice boils down to Might or Vitality.
Both would have their options and advantages. Might would help damage, while Vitality would help survivability.

With the stats on the Banner of War, I'd prefer the Devs to decide on Might as then the Banner of War will actually help boost our offense. (Although I think Banner of War needs to be changed to a straight +damage/+offense bonus as with these changes it will offer no real benefit to Minstrels, Loremasters, and Rune-Keepers and having a banner useless for 3 of the classes is kind of a problem. However that is another can of worms since it is obvious Captains aren't getting looked at as seriously as the other classes are, with the most recent Dev Diary as proof. However fixing this situation would require a Developer bothering to decide what to do with Captains and how to keep them relevant and balanced. In the lorebook entry for the Captain Class it says: "Lore: The Captains of Middle-earth hold the future in their hands. By their own strength of arms and the inspiration they instill in others, they must lead the Free Peoples to victory." This sounds like Captains are supposed to inspire people with their strength, so it can be considered that Might would make sense (although Vitality can also be described as strength of endurance, but that is a bit of a stretch), and that would make itemization simpler as the other Might classes would be able to share gear with the Captain easier. However with a Lore description like that, using Will, Fate, or Agility as the offense stat becomes lore-breaking. Unfortunately it is obvious none of the Developers can be bothered to spend the time updating the Captain Class to be balanced with these new changes so instead they are seemingly letting it stagnate by sticking their heads in the ground and hoping the problem child goes away. Again the Dev Diary about these stat changes is the evidence for this conclusion.

[JRonnie]

All the people railing against Finesse....this is not radiance 2.0.

Radiance was a "YOU SHALL NOT PASS" hard gating mechanism that was a purely arbitrary stat serving no purpose other than to stop people setting foot in raid instances.

Finesse is a soft gating mechanism. Soft gating is fine. Soft gating already exists (and always has for pretty much all of the content in the game). So basically, yes Finesse will be a gating stat, but more of a gate like any other stat is a gate for content. A guard with less than 6.5k morale unbuffed is probably not suitable for tanking OD at the moment. Sure they can try, and maybe even possibly succeed, but you'd much prefer him to have more morale. Finesse will work the same way for dps classes (and to a lesser extent tanks and support classes). If you have little to no Finesse, you can still enter the raid. You may not be of a whole lot of use, but let's face it, that's true of any woefully ungeared person entering a raid.

[Lestache]

No, that would be horrible, it would kill the solo captain who doesn't stack will. And for the last time (not really) Captains are not leaders, they don't impose their will on anyone. And the buff/will related suggestion, again, just no.

honestly there are multiple ways to improve things and keep it capt style friendly WHICH SHOULD BE MORE MELEE based combat.

-Combine the crit rating from both agi and fate total stats and give that to both melee crit and tact crit and put tactical offense to might.
-Change melee offense from might to Vitality/Will that can free up might.
-Change might so that it gives melee crit and will gives tact crit which can free up agi and fate.
-Change out going healing and tact offense into either vit or might.

All of these can be lore friendly as well, they have multiple solutions but won't even touch our class for some odd reason.

Thats exactly my point, Will is not the answer.

Um, he mentioned Will as one of his options for melee offense, too. Looks like Kriptic is suggesting four independent solutions - one of them being the reverse of my idea and moving outgoing healing to Might, which is cool too. I'm on your side, here - I have a Captain as well (one that I raid with often, too).

The main point is to combine the melee offense and outgoing healing of Captains in one stat - be it Might, Will, Fate, or Agility. I'm opposed to putting it into Vitality for the simple reason that no class should be able to stack a single stat for all their needs (much like I'm opposed to leaving Captains as the only class that needs to stack more than two stats for all their needs).

If it all gets put into Will - yeah, that negatively affects the captains who stack Might and ignore Will more than it does captains who do the reverse. The same thing applies if it all gets put into Might, though - that negatively affects the captains who stack Will and ignore Might.

However, if they do make such a change (i.e., base melee offense and outgoing healing on the same stat for Captains), we'll all know about it before RoI launches, and, more importantly, we'll have 10 levels worth of gear to adjust to it.

Whatever the final decision, I hope that whatever gear becomes available at level 75 will reflect the needs of the various classes. Raid gear should be simple enough, as it's class-specific, but I recognize that not everybody raids, so crafted gear may need to be developed a bit more than it currently is. One set of top-end Medium crafted armor won't be sufficient, as Hunters and Burgs will want Agility and Wardens will want Might. If Captains do get their melee offense moved away from Might, then another set of Will (or Fate, or Agility)-specific Heavy Armor should be introduced.

[JTollers]

What is going to happen to Virtues?

I have the same thoughts going through my head because these largely stack resistances of a certain type. I am still very perplexed how a specific type will modify overall resistance.

This also causes me to ask what will be done with the sad racial starter traits - multipliers would be best.

Finally, what comes of mitigation types, LI titles and a Lore-master's "Knowledge" inspection. What will it display now? On its effect end, it would be good for it to debuff not just resistance bit finesse and hopefully burgs and LMs get some sort of debuff to counter finesse.

[Redbeaver]

This means that Lore-masters, Minstrels and Runekeepers will use Will to contribute to their Melee offence. Hunters will use Agility for their Melee offence and Guardians, Champions and Wardens will use Might for their Ranged offence ratings. The Captain’s offence ratings are unchanged.

haha, Hunters' agility for MELEE offence... Champ's Might for RANGED offence. typo?

[Elsydeon]

haha, Hunters' agility for MELEE offence... Champ's Might for RANGED offence. typo?

Nope it isn't a typo it is saying that Hunters will now use Agility not only for Ranged offense but also for Melee Offense. Likewise, Champions, Guardians, and Wardens will get to use Might not only for Melee Offense but for Ranged as well. (And most likely also for tactical for what token tactical offensive skills they have, like fist gambits for wardens.)

[maradakia]

Stat Caps

It starts with the section about the stat caps being a thing of the past. I'm not really excited about this, though it's nice to have room to grow. However, my guess is that because of diminishing returns we wont see much growth from this, and any advancement will be very slow. It says that it will take +4300 above our current cap to get just +10% out of it. Generally looks like something that will take a fair bit of time, and waves of upgrades, to move much beyond where we are.

I'm a little concerned for long term, since the direction this will take us, and the psychology of this will just dig deeper into a growing problem, and in an odd way this solution adds to the problem it attempts to correct.

If the problem is that there's no room to improve, raising the cap would be the obvious solution, but... diminishing returns increasingly cancels that out. The more we go down that path, the more pronounced this problem will become.

As for the physchological aspect: One of the main pillars of an enjoyable rpg game experience is progress/advancement. But if that progress is so small, or so very slow that it's not clear that you're advancing at all... well, an important part of the fun is missing.

So, basically, I think this needs to be carefully looked at by our devs, and I encourage finding a way to allow progress to be made in more obvious steps, and to look for a different way to keep things balanced other than diminishing returns.

Keep in mind we've been getting this from multiple sides over the past couple of years:

1. Sets aren't improving: Each time new armour sets come out we get hopeful of advancement... but then when we see it's stats we have to get a calculator out, because we're really not sure if it's any better, and at best it's some sort of trade off of better in one regard but worse in another... That's a problem. The idea of variety got mixed up : P It's like someone thought, if we don't make anything better, just different, then people will choose from the variety of different sets that have come out over the past 3 years. ! doH. /fail There should be options, and variety, not one size fits all, but there needs to be a variety of new options when upgrades come out, and they need to be upgrades albeit tailored to a variety of builds and preferences.

2. You can't get the sets anyhow: Another layer is the increasing (and currently well out-of-whack) grind to just get an armour piece, further making any progress so very slow that is has ceased to be frustating and has moved on to just plain giving up for many people.
An example of a fairly good balance was the Moria set, which took about the right amount of time/work.

The new OD set massively increased the number of runs needed to get enough medalions for one piece, and added on top is that even with enough medallions, you also have to win the piece from the raid - a very hard raid at that (perhaps overly hard at least in the Durin's Bane fight, which almost none of even the most raid serious groups have been able to succeed in on tier 2 HM, after several months of work).

3. There's too much to say about the Legendary grind, which now reached a breaking point, where many people won't even bother with it, and those who do are /slap (with a very frozen fish) because no sooner than they waste all their efforts, time, and resources on leveling and maxing tiers etc... then they get replaces with new ones and have to go back to scratch.

4. And then finally topped off with ... diminishing returns. You thought after all that enormous amount of work, when you finally got that you'd have made some advance ...

"...but they were, all of them, deceived."



To see the original: http://www.lotro.com/gameinfo/devdia...tes?lang=en_US

[Unique]

There is a thread for this in the Official Discussion area of the forums

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...k-Stat-Updates

[maradakia]

My full reply to this is here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...Totally-Canned

* The Dev Diary should have read: "Captains are a special case... And yes all of you Captains out there, you will get 10 times your Might contribution to Outgoing Healing.

Captains are supposed to be the Primary Buffer, but Buffs are not affected by any stat.

The other roles Captains are supposed to do are:

1. Off-healing
2. Off-tanking
3. Secondary Melee DPS

Might is used for both tanking, and melee.

Vitality is used for tanking of course, but then Vit would need to *10 our melee offence and our outgoing healing. That's why Might makes the most sense to me.

Also, if there's no more Tactical Crit, just general crit... what happens to our Crit Heals?

[RizzRustbolt]

Lore-masters' main stat is Willpower? I thought it was Fate?

[witchking782]

My full reply to this is here: http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...Totally-Canned

* The Dev Diary should have read: "Captains are a special case... And yes all of you Captains out there, you will get 10 times your Might contribution to Outgoing Healing.

Captains are supposed to be the Primary Buffer, but Buffs are not affected by any stat.

The other roles Captains are supposed to do are:

1. Off-healing
2. Off-tanking
3. Secondary Melee DPS

Might is used for both tanking, and melee.

Vitality is used for tanking of course, but then Vit would need to *10 our melee offence and our outgoing healing. That's why Might makes the most sense to me.

Also, if there's no more Tactical Crit, just general crit... what happens to our Crit Heals?

Ya that works for me, as long as melee also effects tact offense as well. We may only have 2 tact skills but those 2 skills have more impact than what the champs and tanks get from range offense with might.

Well the devs are probably off work ever since page 5 so we'll have to wait out till tomorrow.

[RizzRustbolt]

So does this mean that we'll start to see more meaningful stats on equipment? No more Willpower only swords?

[PsychobabbleJJ]

Lore-masters' main stat is Willpower? I thought it was Fate?

then you're seriously misinformed .

[Elsydeon]

So does this mean that we'll start to see more meaningful stats on equipment? No more Willpower only swords?

Willpower only 1-handers swords tend to be for Lore-masters with the legendary trait to use an offhand sword.

Yes this will affect itemization, for example with the current 'exclusion' this will irrevocably harm Captains (unless the itemization dev gives himself a hernia doing double duty to make twice as many heavy armor items as he'd have to otherwise to insure captains have gear to wear) due to sharing Heavy armor with Champions and Guardians who now both are pretty much Might/Vit with no need for a significant amount of other stats. Which does not mesh nicely with the Captains still need every stat because the devs refuse to update the class like every other class is being updated.

For other classes, expect your gear to have stats that will primarily match up with the stats you need for your class. Weapons, Jewelry and cloaks will still be a wide variety for everyone due to the variety of classes that can use them, but otherwise your gear will primarily be slanted to favor the primary stats of the classes that use that gear with variety allowing for customization.

Two handed LI's will still be random lotto for the 'innate stats' they end up with in addition to the legacies.

[aoe4evr]

A top-of the line Raid Boss will probably have BPE and Resistance around 35% total with lesser bosses and trash elites having much less. A few pieces of crafted or quest gear give 10-15% off those totals and another 10-15% Finesse available through instance/raid loot this will lower BPE into more than acceptable levels. That’s the plan anyway and as such subject to change.

Radiance 2.0? Sorry, should have left the question mark off.

[Almagnus1]

I too would like to know if all offense ratings are going to be merged into a single stat for all classes. As far as the heavies using might for bows, think of it as using bows that require more draw strength than what a hunter would use, thus, have the ability to do more damage. As far as a captain and ranged offense, I really could care less, because none of our skills are affected by melee offense, and having our two tactical damage skills use might for their tactical offense would really help too.

What I would like to know is if Outgoing healing will move to a different (more heavy friendly) stat, and how agility contributing to melee critical rating and fate contributing to tactical critical rating are going to change.

If the captains can be pushed into using might/agility for all of their melee/healing/tactical skill damage and criticals, that would be most excellent.

[MashtaJurioz]

very much dislike no limits and massive caps on stats. Will change the game too much.

The current system now is good. And different classes use different stats more efficiently.

[JRonnie]

Radiance 2.0? Sorry, should have left the question mark off.

You can tell just how bad radiance scarred people given this hysterical reaction to finesse. Seriously it's not that bad people. I'll try to do an analogy on what the problem was with radiance and how this isn't even close.

Radiance situation: Leader: Ok guys we need one more for Dol Guldur raid. We really need a champ for AOE in the gaunlet. Jeff, you've got a champ don't you? Jeff: Yeah, but he's only got 60 rad. Leader: Ah, that's not good. You'll just dread out so basically you can't go in at all. Ah well people, guess we're not raiding this week.

Finesse situation: Leader: Ok guys we need one more for [insert ROI raid here]. We really need a champ for AOE'ing the ads on the first Boss fight. Jeff, you've got a champ don't you? Jeff: Yeah, but he's only got 2,500 finesse and everyone I talk to says you should really have 3,000. Leader: Ah, that's fine, you'll still be hitting most of the mobs and the hunters can help lock them down for you. Let's go people!

It's a soft cap people. Not really any different to what we have at this very moment with all the other stats. Would you want to take a healer with minimal or no outgoing healing on a raid? Of course not. Would you want to take a tank with stuff all morale on a raid? No. This is the same thing people.

[Redrider.]

Radiance 2.0? Sorry, should have left the question mark off.

Cheers to this! Radiance 2.0

Soft vs Hard gate? A gate is a gate is a gate.

Another way to punish altoholics with more grind. The first couple of instance bosses will be fine but I foresee down the road bosses that require 500/600+ finesse to even hit. And if you don't have it then you're just dead weight in a group. And by Mordor... Sauron will require 1000+ finesse. Turbine, you had it right with SoA so stop trying to fix something that was never broken.

And it seems like with every major expansion (MoM, RoI) we have to deal with brand new combat mechanics. We had a major change with Moria which caused many to rethink and re-gear toons to work within the new system and now we have another major change that will reset this grind for everyone and force them to re-gear toons from the beginning to work within a new system again.

You can't just lay out ground rules to the game and then pull the rug out from under everyone 2-3 years later. There's enough grind with deconstructing your LI in order to upgrade to a new one every update.

[MajUntagent]

And it seems like with every major expansion (MoM, RoI) we have to deal with brand new combat mechanics. We had a major change with Moria which caused many to rethink and re-gear toons to work within the new system and now we have another major change that will reset this grind for everyone and force them to re-gear toons from the beginning to work within a new system again.

how exactly is it an issue having to regear characters? you weren't really expecting to use the same gear at 75 as what you have now were you? with the level cap rise it's basically a blank slate anyway.