Rise of Isengard: Dev Diary Feedback: Stat Updates

[Ferru]

Agreed. Yes the current system isn't perfect, and I'm sure people have issues with it, but these changes will open up several new cans of worms. And finesse? It's a gating system, one that I'm appalled has even been considered after finally getting rid of radiance.

If Turbine want to improve upon existing systems, why not housing? Or Kinships? Or hobbies? Frankly there's a very long list of things that need to be modified or improved and I would put stats somewhere near the bottom.

/signed

Idhrondir, you just hit the nail on its head !
There is no way to express myself better Idhrondir.


I wonder why Turbine is taking the risk and does such a lot of changes at once ! As a non native engl. speaker its really tough to read trough and understand the whole bunch. My understanding however is good enought to see that you're going to create a big chaos now.

I definately dont like to spend my time after work to study new setups for my chars and study this and study that and a bit of whathaveyounot, justbeacause.

Stick to the simple things and make us feel living in this world. Thats all I want when coming home and diving into the world of Mittle Earth.

Ferru



offtopic:
The Campion was my first Char. I've started to play when Lotro came out. I always wore a Shield with me. Great thanks Turbine for taking it away from me now. Yep it has taken some time figuring out my parameters to be still a good off-tank too. Its great fun to see this efford trashed to the bin and I'm happy to start from scratch, just because, oh yes I have so much time. You superchangers. Wont you just keep Runekeeper and Wardens and decommission all others instead ? Dont play them, you have my vote though !

[MikaHR]

Removal of stat caps - bad

Radiance 2.0 - bad.

I left the game when it was obvious radiance would stay.

I returned when radiance was announced to be gone (FTP update).

I guess Turbine would learn from their mistakes.

I guess its time to leave for good now, cause its not worth it to wait 2 years for them to admit whey were - plain wrong.

[xeria]

Removal of stat caps - bad

Radiance 2.0 - bad.

Cap removal provides more options and flexibility for every class, so it's definitely a positive step. Now Turbine should consider improvements to make the RPG system sturdy enough that it does not require arbitrary things like diminishing returns or varying stat efficacy.

I left the game when it was obvious radiance would stay.

I returned when radiance was announced to be gone (FTP update).

I guess Turbine would learn from their mistakes.

I guess its time to leave for good now, cause its not worth it to wait 2 years for them to admit whey were - plain wrong.

It's difficult to find people who liked the Radiance gating system, so I agree with you there. While I don't like the idea of Finesse on paper (at least as I understand it), it is conceivable it could work as a way to make dungeon content more challenging than regular world content, instead of just being a lame gating system. We can speculate away and declare bold decisions, but ultimately only time (or further feedback) will tell.

[SungXe]

Stat cap removal only works positive (choices) when there is a choice to be made.

1. Gear does not let you choose and combine freely. (Set-bonus and finesse kinda narrow that into a dead end, we have class enforcing Armor Sets, and always one per Addon which is the Top statpointwise for each class).

2. Removal of Passiv Stats (+evasion etc) put you into a position where you need more stat points to REGAIN the efficiency you once had (crit passive training and so on).

3. The Rise in Levels and the nature of the rating system once again put you into a position where you need more stat points to REGAIN the efficiency you once had.

= If the new GEAR does not at least has "double" stat points, you are as always ___loosing combat efficiency. Just higher numbers are shown.

....

[Delabeled]

You can sum up absolutely all 29 pages with just a few words that will explain why turbine has done this.

Money, Money, Money, Money, Oh and More money.

It was obvious as soon as lotro announced F2P and the turbine store for me which route this company was taking LOTRO. They don't care as much about their players as they say. Every single game company out there says they care but when it comes right down to it they care as long as they can get the largest amount of profit with the least amount of effort. Lets face it there are some people out their whos egos are so fragile they absolutely have to have every +1 stat they can get because they feel less of whatever it is they are when they dont have it. All game companies know this. F2P games with an option like LOTRO store has makes millions of dollars but the community they attract remains very small. Now i can NOT BELIEVE i am about to say this BUT i have to honestly say i wish more companies was like Blizzard. WoW has been out well over a decade and is still dominating the MMORPG scene with over 10 million players and increasing every single day. While i didnt care much for WoW mainly because of the catoonish graphics and the feel of the game in general. You have to had it to Blizzard because they are the only game company out there avoiding the F2P scene all together and showing their players day after day that they care by listening to their players before updates etc and using what their players think would be good for the game. The game has a pretty extensive store line and best of all no store in game for those people who feel they need to buff their epeen because they have such fragile egos. I'd never play WoW i did not enjoy it. I enjoy lotro but i have to say turbine is ruining this game with every single update they bring to us. Theres all these little things they implement several years after we have complained about it that we are like "ooo finally this" So we focus at first on what they gave us instead of what they messed up. I can see myself quitting LOTRO within the next 6 months to a year for sure and perminatly. I very seriously doubt that im alone in this. Loads of people i know and have talked to are giving Turbine 1 more chance and then moving on.

[Moondog548]

This desperately needs follow-up from the dev. Lots of great questions and feedback in this thread.

We're left seriously hanging here on a dramatic shift in the core mechanics of the game!

[macdadg]

If you think the limit will be there forever you're naive. Soon enough you'll be seeing medallion-accelerators in the shop that will speed up the grind for getting armor, and scrolls that will allow you to change your craft to max tier of another profession of your liking.

The sky isn't falling. Yes there are a couple items that aren't 'convenience' amd hint towards 'advantage', but I think that Turbine is smart enough (at least I hope they are) to realize if they start actua;;y selling advantage, the vast majority of the playerbase will leave. Only time will tell, and for now the restrictions are in place, and they are kind of available in game, and they aren't used by the general population, only the min/maxers.

[Zweiblumen]

The sky isn't falling. Yes there are a couple items that aren't 'convenience' amd hint towards 'advantage', but I think that Turbine is smart enough (at least I hope they are) to realize if they start actua;;y selling advantage, the vast majority of the playerbase will leave.

Except they've already admitted that they've already crossed that line. I'll paraphrase Fernando Paiz's speech at PAX a few months back below:

"So we decided to sell advantages in the store, even though we said we wouldn't. Even though we know that many players are furious with us, we don't care enough to stop. Cha-ching!"

In case anyone hasn't seen it, Google videos for 'fernando paiz pax 2011 keynote'. It gives you a clear indication of Turbine's attitude towards advantages for sale. Nobody should be under any impression that Turbine have drawn a line in the sand that they will not cross. By their own admission they have already crossed it, and if anyone thinks that it's going to get anything other than progressively worse as time goes on, they are in for a major disappointment.

[Ravenhawk]

It just seems to me that when changes of this magnitude are contemplated you need to be able to allow the players who have leveled their characters up to the level cap and generally maxed out their gear/stats to essentially re-build them.

I am not sure how I feel about the new stat or the removal of some of the mitigations. But I am pretty sure I am seeing another step away from what made LOTRO a great game back in 2007 and 2008. When you picked a class you set yourself up to play one particular way...This just seems to further obfuscate class differences.

If the game goes this route, Turbine should allow some sort of mechanism to 'respec' the existing characters in the game. I'd even understand why some players would want to change classes, races, etc. I know kinmates who have several characters to fill certain roles within a raid...if we are boiling a lot of the differences down...why not give it an account wide feature?

Like I said, I am not sure what this means for my characters, but am willing to see it through...I just hope that we can once again see in LFF "LFM need Burg or Hunter or LM."

[MajUntagent]

It just seems to me that when changes of this magnitude are contemplated you need to be able to allow the players who have leveled their characters up to the level cap and generally maxed out their gear/stats to essentially re-build them.

however people happen to be geared up right now is irrelevant. most likely anyone that raids will need to replace every single piece of gear they have anyway due to the level cap raise and potentially better gear.

[Mithlanros]

You can sum up absolutely all 29 pages with just a few words that will explain why turbine has done this.

Money, Money, Money, Money, Oh and More money.

It was obvious as soon as lotro announced F2P and the turbine store for me which route this company was taking LOTRO. They don't care as much about their players as they say. Every single game company out there says they care but when it comes right down to it they care as long as they can get the largest amount of profit with the least amount of effort. Lets face it there are some people out their whos egos are so fragile they absolutely have to have every +1 stat they can get because they feel less of whatever it is they are when they dont have it. All game companies know this. F2P games with an option like LOTRO store has makes millions of dollars but the community they attract remains very small. Now i can NOT BELIEVE i am about to say this BUT i have to honestly say i wish more companies was like Blizzard. WoW has been out well over a decade and is still dominating the MMORPG scene with over 10 million players and increasing every single day. While i didnt care much for WoW mainly because of the catoonish graphics and the feel of the game in general. You have to had it to Blizzard because they are the only game company out there avoiding the F2P scene all together and showing their players day after day that they care by listening to their players before updates etc and using what their players think would be good for the game. The game has a pretty extensive store line and best of all no store in game for those people who feel they need to buff their epeen because they have such fragile egos. I'd never play WoW i did not enjoy it. I enjoy lotro but i have to say turbine is ruining this game with every single update they bring to us. Theres all these little things they implement several years after we have complained about it that we are like "ooo finally this" So we focus at first on what they gave us instead of what they messed up. I can see myself quitting LOTRO within the next 6 months to a year for sure and perminatly. I very seriously doubt that im alone in this. Loads of people i know and have talked to are giving Turbine 1 more chance and then moving on.

WoW came out in late 2004, hardly well over a decade. Perhaps you are thinking of Everquest that came on in spring of 1999? Also WoW is headed towards free to play, you can now play the first 20 levels free. The marketplace has changed; it isn't 2005 anymore when only a few big players dominated the scene. Nowadays there are a million and a half mmos competing for the same customer base and you have all the casual type games leeching possible subscribers as well. Businesses that don't evolve with the times fail and go out of business. The new Star Wars and Guid Wars 2 games are going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole market when they launch. GW2 is totally free to play, you buy a box and you play forever, I would bet they will have an shop in place we'll have to wait and see how robust it is. Star Wars I think, is the real test to see where the market is, It is going to be a full fledged monthly fee to play. Every other game out there is shifting away from that model, Can the mighty Star Wars IP overcome that fact? I would say yes initially but not over the long haul.

[macdadg]

Except they've already admitted that they've already crossed that line. I'll paraphrase Fernando Paiz's speech at PAX a few months back below:

"So we decided to sell advantages in the store, even though we said we wouldn't. Even though we know that many players are furious with us, we don't care enough to stop. Cha-ching!"

In case anyone hasn't seen it, Google videos for 'fernando paiz pax 2011 keynote'. It gives you a clear indication of Turbine's attitude towards advantages for sale. Nobody should be under any impression that Turbine have drawn a line in the sand that they will not cross. By their own admission they have already crossed it, and if anyone thinks that it's going to get anything other than progressively worse as time goes on, they are in for a major disappointment.

I went and watched the video, and yes it appears that that is the opinion of Fernando. However, it seems to be capped at a small advantage currently (I think he said 10-15%). Fernando is not Kate, even though they are married (I believe I read that somewhere), and DDO is not LOTRO. Do I like them selling advantage in the store? Absolutely not. What Turbine had better realize is this: LOTRO players are different than most other MMo players out there. The IP is one of the major draws to this game (probably the biggest). LOTRO has, from what I've seen, the most mature player base of MMOs currently. We take a lot of pride in our game, and we want to make sure it survives and flourishes. Turbine had better know their audience for LOTRO, if they overstep with the store, people will leave. We aren't playing some EA 1st person shooter MMO like Fernando used as an example in his speech.

So no, I don't think it's going to get progressively worse until you can buy anything in the store. I hope I'm right, but if I'm not, I got 4+ years of enjoyment for a good price, and as many have pointed out, GW2 and TOR will be out soon.

[chrialex]

...WoW has been out well over a decade and is still dominating the MMORPG scene with over 10 million players and increasing every single day...

Actually, their subscription numbers are declining, which was stated by Blizzard's CEO in May. (If you don't want to read the article, they went down 5% in about 6 months. 5% might not seem like a lot, but from 5% of 12 Million is a .6 MILLION subscription decline.)

[Galvadin]

WoW came out in late 2004, hardly well over a decade. Perhaps you are thinking of Everquest that came on in spring of 1999? Also WoW is headed towards free to play, you can now play the first 20 levels free. The marketplace has changed; it isn't 2005 anymore when only a few big players dominated the scene. Nowadays there are a million and a half mmos competing for the same customer base and you have all the casual type games leeching possible subscribers as well. Businesses that don't evolve with the times fail and go out of business. The new Star Wars and Guid Wars 2 games are going to throw a monkey wrench into the whole market when they launch. GW2 is totally free to play, you buy a box and you play forever, I would bet they will have an shop in place we'll have to wait and see how robust it is. Star Wars I think, is the real test to see where the market is, It is going to be a full fledged monthly fee to play. Every other game out there is shifting away from that model, Can the mighty Star Wars IP overcome that fact? I would say yes initially but not over the long haul.

I'm an optimist, so I'm going to say I hope the market doesn't turn into Free 2 Play a.k.a Pay 2 Win. Guild Wars/GW2 has a business model called Buy 2 Play - you buy the game and play forever - and the only things sold in the store are cosmetics, vanity items, character slots, vault storage etc. nothing that gives you any advantage in the game whatsoever. I have no problem with this model, that's the way it should be.

As for ToR, it won't go the way of Pay 2 Win - it will only sell things in the shop that resemble that of GW2, such as cosmetics.

WoW is going the cash shop-route because Blizzard is trying to milk the cashcow while they can, it's been on a steady decline ever since Cataclysm was released and is slowly, but surely, dying. It won't die with a bang, but it will come with a disillusioned playerbase, uncontrolled greed and short-sightedness. Titan will probably put the nail in the coffin on WoW.

Pay 2 Win is the future of small MMO's like LOTRO, Tera, RIFT, Age of Conan etc. Pay 2 Play is the future of Big, serious MMO's that plan on lasting for years and years to come, and Buy 2 Play is probably unique for the Guild Wars-franchise.

[ragnarz]

Incoming Healing 25% 15%
Does that mean that for Man incoming will cap out at 30%?

[Akhilles]

this change go be so funny to watch on live, when bunch of hunters/champs start stacking Might and Agi above everything else to get to the new offense cap (50% right?), and then they become so squishy as a RK

or watch tanks trying get max morale possible through stacking vitality and no avoidances, lol

realy cant wait to see these things

[Moondog548]

If I'm reading this right, my current Agilty focused Champ (I like teh critz and p/e) will be utterly destroyed because Agility will do virtually nothing for us, right? I really only read the changes as giving us LESS options with building our characters

This has needed more dev clarification for weeks.

[elven13]

After reading quite a few of the posts, I have come to the conclusion that, for the greater part of the LotRO gaming community, the only purpose of the game is to have the biggest and baddest toon that you can create; thereby making it a breeze to go into any raid and burn through any and all challenges as if you were one of the Valar themselves. While on the reverse of that coin you have the Dev team which as far as I can tell is trying to make the game more realistic by diversifying the chatacter gen system so that you can still make a toon that fits your playing style, but not make them gods. What is the point of a Gaurd with 100K morale that can't do any damage or block/parry/evade anything. That is not realistic. Name one person in RL that can be everything in every situation. And before you go nuts crying that this isn't RL and all of that nonesense, I know, but what is the fun in playing a character that can breeze through the game with no challenge or a character that is so onesided that it's only purpose is to stand as a wall while everyone else does all the work. I personally believe that a game without challenges isn't any fun, and to complain about something before you have had the chance to really get into it and try it out is assinine (for those with a monosyllabic vocabulary that means stupid). After all, remember that Rad was supposed to be the way to go, and now after much debate and not a little justified griping it is gone, because really who wants to have to grind for years to get a piece of gear that is only going to help in one or two places. With that being said remember this game is for entertainment, so relax a little, have fun, and stop all the crying and complaining because you have to actually learn to play your character.

[FyreBrand]

I like the idea of cap removal and the use of diminishing returns to limit effectiveness.

I do not like the consolidation of stats. It really removed a lot of the fun and depth to gearing a character out. Also, unless old gear is retrofitted with new stats, it becomes silly and useless.

I don't mind the idea of Finesse if it ends up working how RIFT's Hit works. I do think casters should need a focus stat, and that tanks should have a toughness stat. I also don't like that this is going to be implemented so raids can have a more realistic illusion of being "hard".

I really do wonder what sort of development and design focus Turbine has for this game. I'll wait and see how it all works out. I guess feedback at this point is fairly useless anyway.

[RandallSnow]

I like the idea of cap removal and the use of diminishing returns to limit effectiveness.

I do not like the consolidation of stats. It really removed a lot of the fun and depth to gearing a character out. Also, unless old gear is retrofitted with new stats, it becomes silly and useless.

I don't mind the idea of Finesse if it ends up working how RIFT's Hit works. I do think casters should need a focus stat, and that tanks should have a toughness stat. I also don't like that this is going to be implemented so raids can have a more realistic illusion of being "hard".

I really do wonder what sort of development and design focus Turbine has for this game. I'll wait and see how it all works out. I guess feedback at this point is fairly useless anyway.

Wouldn't such additional required stats (focus/toughness) pigeonhole people more into the trinity tank/healer/dps role expectations? When every class has three traitlines and end up being more like sustained dps or utility + spike healing hybrids?

[Ruintheliel]

I don't mind the idea of Finesse if it ends up working how RIFT's Hit works. I do think casters should need a focus stat, and that tanks should have a toughness stat.

I can't say I know how Rift's combat system works, but I'm guessing you will get your wish with Finesse.

Finesse doesn't just reduce the target's BPE, it also reduces resistances (e.g Song, Cry, Tactical, Physical), so casters will certainly need Finesse for their offensive skills. And of course, a tank that doesn't land any of his attacks, melee or tactical, will not produce much threat, so I reckon they will want it too.

Toughness comes through the way diminishing returns work. Tanks will need higher levels of BPE to combat enemy Finesse, so that a certain absolute amount of Finesse has less impact on their BPE levels, thanks to diminishing returns, compared to lower levels of BPE, where Finesse would really hurt.

[FyreBrand]

Yes, I suppose stacking finesse for tanks will come at the expense of stacking b/p/e so, in effect, it's one or the other.

It doesn't really matter if Finesse/toughness pigeonholes group roles because players are going to do that anyway. Trinity is how group content is setup. Some classes will perform better at those roles than others and that is who will get the roles. No matter the changes to classes I doubt people are going to take a warrior skald minstrel with good Finesse over a hunter, champ, or rune-keeper. People are still going to want that minstrel to heal.

[Korgain]

We have also changed the contribution to most class’s Offence ratings to use their primary stat * 10. 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.

This is just stupid.

[Dreckzanrito]

I remember back in SoA days that when they announced MoM then SoM I was quite interested and amuzed...but not in this case, seems like they just want to make everything too simple destroying part of the fun, and draining more money via Lotro Store.

I have a very bad feeling about this new expansion...

[Farian]

Hey Clover and devs =)

Nice ideas, I know the Finesse idea will be more than welcome - it will help a lot, specialy against raid bosses.

The fact that you'll be putting finesse on monsters though, is a bad idea imo. I'm not saying "ah I only want boosts, don't boost the mobs!" haha. Its NOT that, I'll explain carefully if you would care to read =)

When we fight bosses on instances or raids, we're already fighting against mobs above our level. End-game Instance bosses are two levels above the cap level, while raid bosses are three levels above the ap level (please someone correct me if I'm wrong). Anyway, we already have inscrased miss chance and they have high resistances/avoidances against us, which makes them avoid/resist us a lot, so thats why I think you introduced it right? But what I think you guys didn't accounted for when you said that strong mobs will have finesse, is that they ALREADY have finesse on us - as the game is right now.

For having two or three levels above us, our avoidances and resistances are already lesser than what we read on our stats window. Thats why I tell every tank that having exactly 15% on avoidances isnt optimal for raid bosses - because they should be aiming for about 18% (even though we could never read 18% on it) because that would translate as 15% when the boss 2-3 levels above you hits you. Same goes to armor mitigations, melee/ranged/tactical mitigations, etc. For having 1 to 3 levels above us, these bosses or elites ALREADY have finesse on us. They have more than that actually: they have less miss chance and inscreased critical/devastate chance, which is more dangerous actualy.

You're making us tanks happy by knowning we can build an "avoidance tank" and (with gear, buffs and skill) raise at least two defences to 20-25% but we ALREADY have less than what's saying on our stats windows against higher level mobs (bosses). Btw, adding an option (a small arrow-button would do) to visualize how much our ratings mean against bosses/raid-bosses on our stat window would be an excellent idea, this way we can visualize what they really mean on boss fights. Putting finesse on mob's that are already above our level, as far as diminishing returns work, is redudancy. Worse than that, as we already doesnt know what our ratings means against bosses, we would be further lost by having to add an imaginary finesse diminishing on our current ratings - which only turbine knows how much finesse every mob/boss possess. Please make finesse be the solution to work our level disadvantage hit mechanics towards bosses, but don't do the reverse - bosses ALREADY have "finesse" in game as it is.