Tower of Orthanc : playable ?

[Reniannen]

Someone wonders why this update suddenly "appeared", obviously with "some cosmetic" bugs 1 day before the early game start in SWTOR?

So you're saying they released a small update to sway people away from the launch of a whole new MMO? Even I don't think LotRo is that popular.

[Fudoshin]

Playable is one thing.
Enjoyable? Maybe that should be the operative word here?
Unless I am mistaken, if you wipe on 60% of the bosses, you have to disband the raid and re-clear the wing's trash to get another chance at the Challenge? That's how it reads anyway - and that does not sound enjoyable.

"Playable", for sure. Over and over and over and over - things we've done several times already in the same run. If I'm mistaken, please correct me.

In addition, I do shudder to think of the unknown bugs....

You guys really should have waited a week or two for additional "polish" time.
Lots of people are making this a penultimate judgement of sorts. O well, I guess.

Right on! bear in mind "the pit of iron" was deemed playable too. Enjoyable in it's initial state? probably not so much by most accounts.

Just be glad this is a game company and not something like Boeing, you can imagine right? "Absolutely passengers, the plane does fly, well, most of the time, as long as we don't get a headwind or someone doesn't yawn during takeoff or landing, thankyou for flying first time with us..." (I actually mean that, despite the sarcasm included)

I have to admit as I read the known issues though I thought, oh lord it's OD mistakes again, it won't surprise me to see mistaken chest spawns or rather, lack of them, either. Threads of of "we did challenge X and got credit but no chest" incoming.

[Jacbo]

Empirically speaking, we went into the raid today sort of unexpectedly, just sort of a "hey we did the 3-mans and 6-mans might as well raid". We chose to do it on T1 because the armor pieces from the raid list T1 deeds as needed, so it allowed us to open up the armor purchasing path quicker, and also reflected how some of the other deeds in Update 5 have been implemented(ie. If you clear T2 Challenge on all the 3-mans/6-mans, you won't actually complete the T1 deeds for some strange reason).

Long story short, we didn't notice any substantial gameplay bugs in any of the five wings. It's entirely possible there were some whose incidental impact was making a particular fight too hard or too easy or causing it to present differently than intended. We also had a lot of issues with a few players who would crash every time they tried to rejoin the raid. But in the fights themselves we didn't experience any game breaking bugs the likes of the notorious Draigoch ones or the Fear Wing air puddles of doom.

Take it for what you will. The update is hardly bug free, I agree I'd have liked for it to be developed longer and I think it's an unavoidable correlation it just so happened to be pushed to the day before The Old Republic intends to launch. Particularly the itemization in the 3-man/6-man instances is pretty terrible. But it is what it is, and the raid is at least mostly functional.

[HairyLegs]

Someone wonders why this update suddenly "appeared", obviously with "some cosmetic" bugs 1 day before the early game start in SWTOR?

It's clearly because they are doing everything they can to make people play SWTOR.

i.e. Release 1 day before
Player: OOO new instances! Oh wait; they're really bugged and broken.
Next day:
Player: OOO SWTOR is out! Yay!

I'd really like to get a psychoanalysis on those who call the shots at Turbine.

[MrJaZn]

We also had a lot of issues with a few players who would crash every time they tried to rejoin the raid. But in the fights themselves we didn't experience any game breaking bugs the likes of the notorious Draigoch ones or the Fear Wing air puddles of doom.

Take it for what you will. The update is hardly bug free, I agree I'd have liked for it to be developed longer and I think it's an unavoidable correlation it just so happened to be pushed to the day before The Old Republic intends to launch. Particularly the itemization in the 3-man/6-man instances is pretty terrible. But it is what it is, and the raid is at least mostly functional.

I agree with pretty much all of this. I was really annoyed at crashing about a total of 8 times in the raid today. I was checking out some trash pulls duo before our raid time and crashed 5 times just going through portals. It was weird because it seemed completely random on whether I crashed or not. We had 6 other people that had client crashes when entering multiple times.

I'm not leaving for SW:TOR and I don't think releasing the update before SW comes out would make a big enough difference to justify releasing it with so many known issues. The people that are leaving for SW were already set on trying it out or the grass is greener on the other side mentality. If anything, I feel like this buggy update would fuel people to go try SW while turbine works on fixing these bugs. I can't imagine a gaming company making a decision like this that seems horrible to me without some solid numbers to back it up, which I assume they have.(Optimistically)

If it wasn't purposely planned to be released before SW:TOR, why release it with this many known issues? I thought there was a test server for a reason and now feel like we're testing it live for more bugs while the devs work on the known ones.

[Kerin_Eldar]

It's clearly because they are doing everything they can to make people play SWTOR.

i.e. Release 1 day before
Player: OOO new instances! Oh wait; they're really bugged and broken.
Next day:
Player: OOO SWTOR is out! Yay!

I'd really like to get a psychoanalysis on those who call the shots at Turbine.

TBH, that's the reaction I saw from a few of my kin who have been in SWTOR's beta and are waiting eagerly for their early-start codes: they saw U5, completed the book in 45 mins, at least one did a couple of the instances and both bugged out on him, they all said they don't see much reason to play LOTRO again any time soon.

[Barrynor]

Aah, come on, we do this every patch... we launch stuff that has some issues, our customers complain, and we put up a show to convince em we have the manpower to deal with issues and that's that....





... no it isnt, as we wanted to change stuff, and now push back and add "its done when its done" if we have to. Bugs can happen, but stuff must be workable/playable.

[Shooby]

Most of the raid looks playable with the exception for the lightning boss.
Too many small bugs and annoyances there to make it worthwhile.
You are effectively locked into challenge mode without getting the rewards.
Also, the encounter mechanics are not easy to understand in such a short space of time between wipes.

The fact that challenge modes don't reset won't effect many kins during the first week because most will try to clear T2 normal before tackling the challenges.

If its still like this in 2 weeks, then I will start to complain...

[Starrywisdom]

TBH, that's the reaction I saw from a few of my kin who have been in SWTOR's beta and are waiting eagerly for their early-start codes: they saw U5, completed the book in 45 mins, at least one did a couple of the instances and both bugged out on him, they all said they don't see much reason to play LOTRO again any time soon.

Pretty much this. All these 'cosmetic' bugs really make the update lack luster ESPECIALLY considering they were already pushed back. They should have been launched dang-near bug free.

[jwbarry]

After some investigation we discovered we were a little aggressive in the known issues relating to challenge resets.
The Acid Wash (Acid wing) and Pinnacle of Orthanc (Saruman) challenges reset properly, you will get the challenge again upon the bosses entering combat after a reset.
The Conductivity (Lightning) challenge is however broken and not properly re-bestowing.

I don't have an eta on a fix.

[Warth]

After some investigation we discovered we were a little aggressive in the known issues relating to challenge resets.
The Acid Wash (Acid wing) and Pinnacle of Orthanc (Saruman) challenges reset properly, you will get the challenge again upon the bosses entering combat after a reset.
The Conductivity (Lightning) challenge is however broken and not properly re-bestowing.

I don't have an eta on a fix.

You're my new favorite dev for actually taking the time to post about bugs in the middle of this ****storm of forum rage. Thank you.

[swordmonkey]

After some investigation we discovered we were a little aggressive in the known issues relating to challenge resets.
The Acid Wash (Acid wing) and Pinnacle of Orthanc (Saruman) challenges reset properly, you will get the challenge again upon the bosses entering combat after a reset.
The Conductivity (Lightning) challenge is however broken and not properly re-bestowing.

I don't have an eta on a fix.

Thanks for the update. Any news on the issue with boss deeds not completing if you are defeated when the boss is defeated?

[Southpa]

Thanks a bunch, JWB!
We appreciate that you pay attention to us.

[lwk1138]

Thanks for looking into this and giving a quick update!

[Aquatium]

Wondering if anyone else has noticed that T2 Acid Wing, you CAN NOT reset the Trolls buff with CC in the Boss fight, if you have tried the fight you will know what that means... (aka Broken fight)

[Leonide]

Thanks for the update. Any news on the issue with boss deeds not completing if you are defeated when the boss is defeated?

Dont think thats bug. Feeling that is WAI.

May be wrong.


PS:
My kin experience: we get to the Saruman without bugs.

[Comma44]

Well Tier 1 was cleared without any game breaking issues. Biggest issue we had was deed not bestowing when people were dead at the end of the fight, but that's WAI apparently, just get rezzed within 30sec. The lightening ring in Saruman is not working properly according to the tooltip either but again, not game breaking, just someone didn't get to be as epic as they thought for 12s.

For the trolls in Acid it should still be doable even if that buff can't be reset... would just require a bit of a different approach.

[Rauthgar]

Playable and fun (T1 at least)

[Burio]

If the buff on the troll in acid wing don't reset on tier 2 you just need to change kill order, i think. Seems doable.

Lighning Boss Tier 2 seems hard to learn mechanics like steam and Chain Lightning. No hints how you get Steam or don't get it, Shock seems to be to fast to get out auf group... If the chain lightning links in t2 it's always a wipe.

[Aquatium]

If the buff on the troll in acid wing don't reset on tier 2 you just need to change kill order, i think. Seems doable.

I'm going to say I don't think you know exactly what happens in T2, I won't go into it but if you can not reset the buff in T2 you will almost never (I say almost because we didn't test one specific thing but it is really just "never") finish the fight and challenge will never be done.

[nolins12]

Lightning t2 is doable, two nights ago we got him down to his last phase, just takes some coordination. Having to do challenge while not getting challenge rewards is definitely annoying though..

[Mithgalad]

You get the challenge box just not challenge deed/quest.

jwbarry

Please check Acid wing boss. After one wipe the adds spawn erratically, fight only works once per wing clear. Have to disband and clear the previous mob groups again. Quest indeed is re-bestowed correctly. Also, challenge is complete chance, please check acid geyser area of effect.

[Jamesm429]

Hey JW, since you guys have posted: •Raid - Tower of Orthanc - Event Tracking UI - The Event Tracker UIs are tracking specific effects but are failing to generate a tooltip which more clearly explains what they are tracking

Can you post what those tool tips do say please? Last night we where going the Giants, we saw the Rage buff bars, but would like to know if there is a tool tip there and what it says because no matrer what we tried, we just got our butts kicked.

[Crell_1]

Can you post what those tool tips do say please? Last night we where going the Giants, we saw the Rage buff bars, but would like to know if there is a tool tip there and what it says because no matrer what we tried, we just got our butts kicked.

Wasn't that the wing that was largely RambleOn for on BR? I know you were in at least a couple of the runs. .. Ask around your kin.

If memory serves the bars are the fire/ice tier ups. ; Been too busy to pop in on live yet.

[Jamesm429]

On BR, we did it T1, lastnight was T2, fight not near as easy.