TRANSCRIPT: Twitter Dev Chat August 21, 2013 - Class Changes

[Lohi]

It's all in the balance. If you need to do all of those things at once, you give up a bit of your specialization, in this case, your DPS. If you don't need to do all of those other things, you can afford to take more DPS skills and traits.

The point is that this new system is reducing the utility of some classes. Sure it's simpler, but that means game play becomes more simplistic, we fall back towards old school tank/heal/dps with anything else in the room being awkward. And flat out, it is much less fun to specialize for these support classes.

I have one of every class! If I want to specialize in DPS then I will log onto a DPS class instead.

[Rufkin]

If you've already done the deeds, you get the points automatically. If you haven't done the deeds, then your character isn't maxed out right now.

Actually, right now you can max your character out in red, blue, or yellow, or any combination thereof making that character the best 'maxed out' character it can possibly be by only doing somewhere around 10 skill trait deeds (including legendary). A maxed out character at this point means all your skill trait slots are full. Maxing a character out does not mean completing every single deed that could possibly be done. Instead it means making the character the best it can possibly be at what you want it to do.

In the new tree system it could mean that you'll need to complete about two to three times more deeds than what you've already completed if you only unlocked what you needed to equip. If the remainder of the trait deeds are required to get trait points unlocked, and in turn get all the skills in a tree, now a character that was previously maxed out in the red tree might not have enough trait points to buy their way to the max in red. Leading to them not having all of the skills they did before this revamp.

This could be a great thing for all of us, unlocking more ability and range for every single class. Unfortunately it will probably also mean that the first several hours of gameplay of the expansion will require most people to not only relearn their class, but go back to old content and do deeds previously skipped because they were basically worthless in the past. Even worse, skill deeds that have you performing a useless skill several times usually only give credit if you are in combat near your level range, and are gated to a maximum number of times per day. Finally, some deeds are locked behind reactions that you cannot control, like having your skills resisted for instance.

I would like a list of what deeds exactly will grant trait points. If it will be all of them, fine, let us know now so we aren't grinding deeds for the first month of HD just to catch back up to 85.

[seekingerin]

You are partly right. We have a fix coming for some of this, specifically mounted combat lag, in Update 11.3. Along with some additional monitoring that will help us further isolate issues players report as 'lag'. We've learned a lot, including what is absolutely not part of the issue, but we're not 100% content yet.

However, we're also going to publish new system requirements in the near future. As we've been investigating we've discovered that our minimum and recommended specs are not accurate. Some of our updates push equipment more than we realized (Moria did, Mirkwood did, Rohan very much did, and we expect Helm's Deep will). So we're working on a new set of specs to better reflect what you should use as baselines to run the game. Again, always take 'run the game' to mean the lower end of things, to really run it full bore with raids and other action on screen you always want to aim higher (no matter what game).

Will the changes in 11.3 ease general lag in Rohan--for example, that experienced in towns or while fighting on foot in orc camps--or will it only address lag experienced during mounted combat? And will it address lag while riding across the landscape in Rohan, or will it only address lag when actively engaged in combat?

[TinDragon]

Technically, it's not called the healing line. It's just a label that some people applied to it. However it does a lot more healing than without those traits; maybe you're not seeing it because captains are spamming rallying cry now (they really did reduce the cooldown from gear sets too much, I never saw the need to get it shorter than the traited version). Consider lore masters where the blue line is NOT healing it's about having better pets (and the healing comes from improving ability to heal pets).

Both the trait line and the capstone are called Hands of Healing. (http://lotro-wiki.com/index.php/Hands_of_Healing) Are you trying to tell me the purpose of the line is not healing, when the capstone has it right in the name, and 6 of the 8 blue class traits directly affect heals in some manner? (The two that don't improve the rez, which is generally seen as a healer skill, and the other lowers power costs of a few skills, a good portion of which are heals.)

It's also a good thing they can heal in red traits. Why would you not want this? Do you not like captains and insist that only properly traited ones should be allowed to join the groups, you want to go back to the bad old days where you were always required to waste money to retrait and have the proper gear before getting an invite? I can tell you for sure that a red traited captain is a very good addition to a group even if no healing is done but so many groups flat out refuse to consider that option.

I am a captain, "not liking captains" doesn't make any sense. What I'm saying is that there's no reason to go blue right for virtually any content since red heals 90% as much as blue line does, while doing a significant amount of damage more than the blue line does. It's not balanced.
Do you not want classes to be balanced? I do. Otherwise it means everyone's locked into the exact same setup. I'm not saying captains shouldn't be able to heal at all in red line. I'm saying that if a captain traits full red, they should be seeing some kind of hit to their healing, and currently there is virtually no loss to the healing.

---

Actually, right now you can max your character out in red, blue, or yellow, or any combination thereof making that character the best 'maxed out' character it can possibly be by only doing somewhere around 10 skill trait deeds (including legendary). A maxed out character at this point means all your skill trait slots are full. Maxing a character out does not mean completing every single deed that could possibly be done. Instead it means making the character the best it can possibly be at what you want it to do.

In the new tree system it could mean that you'll need to complete about two to three times more deeds than what you've already completed if you only unlocked what you needed to equip. If the remainder of the trait deeds are required to get trait points unlocked, and in turn get all the skills in a tree, now a character that was previously maxed out in the red tree might not have enough trait points to buy their way to the max in red. Leading to them not having all of the skills they did before this revamp.

The new tree system is giving you room to branch into other trait lines if you have the max amount of points. If you don't have the max amount, that means that you'll be able to max your specialty (roughly) but not be able to splash into other lines. Since you didn't go out of your way to get those other traits, one could assume you don't care about splashing into the other lines anyway, which means you'll be fine.

Even worse, skill deeds that have you performing a useless skill several times usually only give credit if you are in combat near your level range, and are gated to a maximum number of times per day. Finally, some deeds are locked behind reactions that you cannot control, like having your skills resisted for instance.

Go spam a training dummy. Not exactly fun, but it's probably the easiest way to finish the deeds, short of doing them while you're leveling.

I would like a list of what deeds exactly will grant trait points. If it will be all of them, fine, let us know now so we aren't grinding deeds for the first month of HD just to catch back up to 85.

Pretty sure they said all of 'em. If I were you, I'd get started now. Not like there's much content to do right now anyway, so personally I'd rather be safe (finishing the deeds and not needing them) than sorry (not finishing the deeds and ending up needing them).

[Madmanthief]

I kind of don't like the tree and yet I do.

It will take some getting used to I'm sure, but it may work out better than intended.

Ex. :

I know that when i made my first Sorcerer in DDO, i would have to keep looking at the wiki to make sure i was making him correctly into an Air Savant. Now I have only to place the right points into the appropriate tree.

I think this may force some to rethink how they play their class, or at the very least make them learn how to better Trait their respective classes.

[helgamarie2013]

Think the dev team missed to answer my questions and think it would be a lovely idea (PLEASE) to get some sort of OFFICIAL reply from the TURBINE DEV team (Thnx!)

1st-)Any plans about revamping&fix the issue related to the actual limitation of adding more than 50 players to the friend list (while in the ignore list u can add as many as u want)?. Many players have been complaining about this for quite long, friend list needs an urgent fix (update).
2nd-)Any news about letting players dying the hairs of their players in whatever colors they would be interested in (why there isnt a chance for elves to have Blonde hair, when tolkien wrote most of the elves used to have blonde hair!!!!)? The same goes for eye colors.
3rd-)Any ideas of when the LOTRO mail system will get a revamp, they need to work on promised issues like being able to send multiple things at the same time, or the length of the mail body (thats quite short right now)

That said thnx again! (EDITED after tindragon suggestions)

[TinDragon]

1st-)Any plans about revamping&fix the issue related to the actual limitation of adding more than 50 players to the friend list (while in the ignore list u can add as many as u want)?. Many players have been complaining about this for quite long, friend list needs an urgent fix (update).

Ignore list has a cap too. I think it's 200. Quite easy to hit on a server like Silverlode.

Side note, you may be more likely to get a reply if A) you were more polite, and B) posted it in an appropriate thread. Since this topic is about the class revamp and the Twitter Q&A, and your questions don't fit either of those, it's not an appropriate place to ask.

[Hiritier]

So, the "20 skills" issue is something I'd like to address.

First, it is referring to skills which actively impact gameplay. Things such as teleports, pets, stances, and fluff skills (and probably another category which I'm not thinking of off the top of my head) will not count against that amount.

Second, the "20 skills" is not a hard and fast number, but more of a general guideline. You may end up with more or less, depending on your specialization.

Third, each class has a pool of general skills (skills we feel are important to all three specialization lines) and more specific skills. How you choose to invest your traits will have an impact on what skills are available to you. I'll use the Burglar as an example. Please bear in mind some of the specific skills I'm mentioning are new, and we'll discuss their impact at a later time.

Some general skills every single Burglar will eventually have access to include (but are not limited to): Riddle, Subtle Stab, Double-edged Strike, Reveal Weakness and Hide in Plain Sight. Now, if I choose to specialize as a Gambler, I'll immediately gain access to Lucky Strike and Hedge Your Bet. From here, I could completely fill in the Gambler tree, picking up skills such as Gambler's Advantage, Trip and All In. Or, I could choose to not invest all of my points in Gambler to pick up Stun Dust from the Quiet Knife line and Trick: Dust in the Eyes from the Mischief-maker line.

The exact number of skills you have will vary, based on how you choose to specialize your character and spend your trait points.

Thank you for explaining. However, i still dont understand how the current traits, especially class traits, will work in this system? You said "spend your trait points", what does it mean? Trait points are spent in skill tree? Are they combined or something?

I guess... example the guard's skill Vexing Blow. Non-trait, it's a single target skill, with the trait Harasser it become AoE with faster cooldown. So i guess with this new system, the Vexing Blow will be a general skill, then if you spend point in the x tree you will get... let's say the "Improved Vexing Blow" skill, which will work like the current Vexing Blow + Harasser?

One thing many people love about the trait's slots system is you can choose which trait to combine. Now with the tree system, the choice maybe lesser. Example:
- Current slot system: Again, take the guardian as an example, I can choose Grim Challenge, Harasser and Litany of Challenge (taking) traits + lets say Brave Heart, Selfless Defence and Controlled Breathing (yellow) traits. The Vexing Blow, Challenge, Protection, Warrior's Heart and Catch a Breath will be changed with these traits.
- New tree system: If I want the "Improved Challenge" (current Challenge + Grim Challenge trait) or the "Advantaged Challenge" (current Challenge + Litany of Challenge) I must spend, lets say 8 point into the blue tree. If I want the "Improved Catch a Breath" skill (current Catch a Breath + Controlled Breathing trait) i must spend 5 points in the yellow tree. But i only have 10 points total, so i cannot have both Improved Challenge and Improved Catch a Breath with the new system.

Pls correct me if I'm wrong but if I understand it right, this new system will limit the choice to specialize my class.

[Madmanthief]

To give an idea of what i'm thinking it "may" be like:

[Jewl_of_the_lake]

Excuse me, but my question wasn't answered. The question was if Minstrels can be as strong as possible War-speech minstrels who can enjoy all the solo content of the game, and as strong as possible healers who'll get invited to raids?



Most of the content needs to be done solo because it's hard to find groups for all instances, almost impossible to find groups for fellowship quests, and completely impossible for us who aren't married to force someone to follow us around for years when we quest :P

And no one will want a so-so healer for a raid.

Therefore I'm wondering how the skill points work: Will minstrels have enough skill points to make two builds, one for solo and one for grouping, or will they need to sacrifice being wanted in raids to be able to handle harder quests on their own?

My mini now is always heal traited and has no problem with a dps instrument for the solo/epic content. What it sounds like they are giving us is to have 2 set ups that we can switch on the fly without having to go to a bard and fully retrait for raids. You can have your heal set up on one tree and your dps on another; not all on the same tree.

[thinx]

Q5: banjolier: For players who spent TP to unlock trait slots, how will you convert our existing purchases to the new system? #LOTRO
A5: HoarseDev: Your specialization choice gives you access to bonuses as you spend points. #LOTRO
A5a: These are unlocked in the same way as the old slots and those purchases carry over to the new system. #LOTRO

Q7: Grhysli: How much of this new system is going to be gated behind the LOTRO Store? #LOTRO
A7: HoarseDev: Only the slots similar to the old Premium/F2P purchases and additional builds after the two you get for free. #LOTRO

Q39: @leixicon will all trait lines still be auto-unlocked for VIPs? #LOTRO
A39: Hoarsedev Yes they will. #LOTRO

This leaves some questions open for me. Maybe some of them have already been asked, but I haven't seen an answer dev tracker (at least for this thread).

• Ex-vip characters did (possibly) not spend TP to unlock slots. I guess their slots will also carry over?
• Will being a "future ex-vip" unlock all trait trees also in the new system?
• Does having all slots unlocked now also mean that every trait/line of a maxed out character is unlocked in the new system or are there any extra things that require another TP purchase? (except the additional setup slots, where TP cost has already been stated)
• I guess deed progress will also be carried over or are those new deeds?

[Neira]

A15: Jinjaah: Our goal, and it isn’t the same across the board, is for all classes to have around 20 skills after spending all their points.

Player since 6 years, this change worries me a lot.
If a grouping of the skills of travels (for a hunter for example) is a good idea, where's the interest of a decrease of the number of the skills of a class ? The gameplay of Lotro was adapted to this number and it's also what made all the charm, the strength and the wealth of the game. You want to simplify for who ? The casual players ? But if they feel lost on Lotro, that they go to get lost on Guild Wars ! More time goes by and more Lotro looks like all these new MMO which go out. But these MMO aren't a reference, because they're alike all and have "MMO" only the name. Lotro is a game with a strong license, with a gameplay which made it all its originality. Why deprive us that ? Turbine worked again DDo recently, but for a catastrophic result. Do we have to expect the same thing on lotro? Great...

[Silmelin]

Sorry about being off topic, everyone! But since I know the answer to this I thought I'd answer anyway

2nd-)Any news about letting players dying the hairs of their players in whatever colors they would be interested in (why there isnt a chance for elves to have Blonde hair, when tolkien wrote most of the elves used to have blonde hair!!!!)? The same goes for eye colors.

Helgamarie, you can have blonde hair as an elf. Since you don't know this, I'm guessing you didn't look carefully on the character creation screen when making your elf There's options on the left side where you choose origin. Different origins gives different colours to choose from when making your elf and also when changing hair colour and hairstyle in game.

Choose Lórien or Mirkwood and it will will let you have blonde/white/grey/brown/black hair, but choose Lindon or Rivendell or Edhellond and it will only let you have brown and black hair

[bohbashum]

The point is that this new system is reducing the utility of some classes. Sure it's simpler, but that means game play becomes more simplistic, we fall back towards old school tank/heal/dps with anything else in the room being awkward. And flat out, it is much less fun to specialize for these support classes.

I have one of every class! If I want to specialize in DPS then I will log onto a DPS class instead.

I don't think thats true at all. every class will have a more "solo" freindly line. but that doesn't mean that we'll fall into the holy trinity.

going back to twitter chat ages ago, they blaimed the easy content on there current form of classes being too hybrid, doing too much, or being to open ended. I think that means that dps have too much survival, tanks aggro management is too easy, and many more. I expect tanks will focus more on survival then aggro now, you might need a champ/burg/yellow warden/yellow hunter/blue LM or something else to be an aggro management class in the group. with group survival nurfed as everyone needs to be more pure, we might need a debuffer more to support extra damage and keep non-tanks alive. it'll be more of a focus of group synergy than before.

we need simpler classes so each to fill it's own roll instead of now with classes doing so much making the depth of grouping is too easy. we have 6 people in a group, there are 9 classes with 27 sub classes. all there doing is defineing the sub classes so each class can be 3 rolls, but not all at once.

next to tank/heal/dps/support, there is many more sub-sections.
- defensive tank, aggro tank, aoe tank, off-tank, debuff turtle
- moral/main healer, power healer,off-healer, aoe healer, bubble healer(overhealing),
- melee single target dps, melee aoe dps, ranged single target dps, ranged aoe,
- offencive buffs, defencive buffs, inc damage debuffs, reduced damage debuffs, CC/slows/roots/stuns/fears, intterupter, corruption remover, fellowship cooldowns(group savers), in-combat rezzes, out-of-combat rez, aggro management

now if you look at that (ofc I might have missed some) for each spec, pick 1 roll (tank/heal/support) then pick in it's list (only 1 for tank/heal/dps maybe 2/3 for support), and you've got a hint at what your spec line will probably be like.

then you've got some mechanisms that I should mention
- pet classes, focus/feavour, gambit system, attunement system, reactive (offencive or defensive), stealth, ballad system, positional

other systems that better define rolls/mechanics/rolls
- burst or sustain/dots
- aura's or floor placed mechanics
- hots or burst
- inductions or instant cast
- mobile or still

there are so many combinations. will so much more defined specs and more "pure" classes that can do 3 differant aspects but not all at once, there will be a large amount of depth in choosing the right line for the right instances. and most importantly, it'll be quite easy for turbine to see how a new class could fit in, and how to truely balance content to what our classes can do.

[RicardoFurriel]

Question: will there be a need to use different trait specs? Or stack dps is more than enough to blaze through content skirmish style?

[Rhuvor]

Once again, STANCES determine whether a lot of skills increase threat or decrease threat, even for guardians. If your guard dies, just change stances. You can't change existing traits anyway without a trip back to the bard. Even if you are designed for DPS, in a bad situation you aren't totally screwed. You do the best you can in the few seconds it takes to get that guard back up.

With healers, even an RK, you assume that Prelude to Hope is your only skill. RK's have an attunement panel for a reason, and what's more, they have a skill that they can trait up that is devoted for the sole purpose of going from one extremity to the other within seconds. That would become a useless trait if RKs then have virtually no skills to use at the other extremity.

What I'm saying is that lots of people are panicking, which is causing arguments, when it could all be for naught. Express concern, by all means. But please, keep it restricted to concern, instead of getting angry at other posters. There have already been several hate posts in this thread because people are counting their chicks before they are hatched, and responding very impulsively. Express concerns but getting angry serves no purpose. That would be "guilty until proven innocent", which is neither fair to Turbine, nor rational on its own.

Totally agree with this last paragraph. Well said!

[Bhoris_they_spider]

Has it been said what will happen to racial traits?

[TinDragon]

Has it been said what will happen to racial traits?

I don't believe it's been answered yet, but I know at least one other person has brought up the same question.

[Forgotten_Legend]

That would depend on the number of cookys you have to offer.

sorry, all i have is bacon... ;-)

[Forgotten_Legend]

[sorry for double post... not quite used to the new forums yet]

Q8: Schinderhannes: Will the update allow us to use 4 legendary traits at the same time? #LOTRO
A8: HoarseDev: No, but the ones you have will be more potent. #LOTRO
A8a: Deviled_Egg: Legendary traits are now a part of each trait tree, and are available for purchase at the end of the tree. #LOTRO
A8b: There is also a Legendary Passive bonus that depends on your specialization.#LOTRO
A8c: This will be unlocked when you spend a certain number of points overall. #LOTRO

sooo, for example... hunter specialized in red (burn hot), blue (improved fleetness) or yellow (???? been so long i don't even remember), and we can currently fill out the other 2 slots with bard's arrow, rain of thorns, press onward, or bow of the righteouss.... under the new system, bow of the righteouss is obviously passive, and would be unlocked automatically (with enough trait points spent) at some point... but how about press onward, bard's arrow, and rain of thorns, which add skills?

[Moochi]

I was pleased to see a version of one of my questions answered as Q33/A33.

Here is my original question in the thread that is closed now:

To respec for silver, will we have to refund all points at a hefty silver cost as in the current mounted combat respec system? Cannot we instead build a new spec, and the system then calculates the cost difference for only those parts changed, as with the chats we currently have with our bards?

and the version that was answered:

Q33: @Scoed To respec for silver, will we have to refund and respend all points, or just the parts we want to change? #LOTRO
A33: HoarseDev It's all or nothing. #LOTRO

While I'm glad to see it answered, I'm disappointed with the answer. Because one of the things I really dislike about the mounted combat system is having to respend all 77 points whenever I want to changes to a spec. Its tedious, slow, boring, and expensive. The tech is there already to unallocate and reallocate points (we can do it while building a MC spec between right-mouse-button to unallocate and left-mouse-button to (re)allocate. In the chats we have with bards, we only have to clear the spaces we want changed and slot new things, then only pay for the changed bits.

When we want to respec for silver, we should only need to unallocate the parts of the trees we want to change, and reallocate, and pay the difference. For many raiding characters (my burg and captain come especially to mind, and I expect others in support roles), we're often changing our class traits based on the instance (or wing) we're about to tackle, but often its just 2-3 traits we're changing. However, the different combinations/permutations of those 2-3 traits is very large... more than I'll buy spec sets for. Far more than the 7 offered in MC, for that matter. So I expect to want to retrait for silver a lot, but really really really don't want to spend time respending all those points constantly. The current system of retraiting at a bard is quick and easy compared to the MC respec system. If we get "all or nothing" instead of un/reallocate, I expect these classes will feel gimped, not strengthened.

For me, personally, the time required to respend the 70+ points when I just want to make minor changes is the major issue, and the cost is the minor issue, but I see no reason not to address both.
The tech is mostly there already.
The reasons are there.
The players desire it.
Will turbine provide it?

[DarthKeryx]

This could be a great thing for all of us, unlocking more ability and range for every single class. Unfortunately it will probably also mean that the first several hours of gameplay of the expansion will require most people to not only relearn their class, but go back to old content and do deeds previously skipped because they were basically worthless in the past. Even worse, skill deeds that have you performing a useless skill several times usually only give credit if you are in combat near your level range, and are gated to a maximum number of times per day. Finally, some deeds are locked behind reactions that you cannot control, like having your skills resisted for instance.

I understand your concern and good points. In my experience it's hard to level a toon and have so many skill deeds unfinished. Yes I admit it happens especially for my Burglar. I have to perform which skill? how many hundred times? and the CD is like 5-10 minutes? Argh! I should have paid more attention as I leveled her and knocked them out along the way.

[PerfectApproach]

given that the rk attunement mechanism already blocks out skills, how is that going to be integrated into the new trait system?

[cossieuk]

I understand your concern and good points. In my experience it's hard to level a toon and have so many skill deeds unfinished. Yes I admit it happens especially for my Burglar. I have to perform which skill? how many hundred times? and the CD is like 5-10 minutes? Argh! I should have paid more attention as I leveled her and knocked them out along the way.

Think of the poor minstrels and their rezzing skill deed. There is no way to advance this other solo unless you happen on someone dead in the open world. RK healing skills have a similar problem for solo players, but at least you can advance then will fighting grey mobs as you can heal yourself. Solo Burglars also have issues with the deed for starting conjunctions.

I hope Turbine plan changes to these deeds for the large number of solo players or these players will not get all their points

[TinDragon]

While I'm glad to see it answered, I'm disappointed with the answer. Because one of the things I really dislike about the mounted combat system is having to respend all 77 points whenever I want to changes to a spec. Its tedious, slow, boring, and expensive. The tech is there already to unallocate and reallocate points (we can do it while building a MC spec between right-mouse-button to unallocate and left-mouse-button to (re)allocate. In the chats we have with bards, we only have to clear the spaces we want changed and slot new things, then only pay for the changed bits.

I do agree with this, and although Turbine is probably thinking that purchasing extra builds will fix this, I don't think it will. Captains don't really have a huge problem with this, but I know LMs have a ton of useful traits, most that work well with each other, and there are a ton of combinations you can put traits in. Even if I had access to 20 different builds I don't think I could preset every single potential build I would use on my LM. With ~71 points to spend (a point every other level is about 47 points, plus the 24 from class deeds is 71) that's going to take a lot of time to reapply a lot of points just to change one trait. I have a bad feeling it'll lead to players not playing at their best because they refuse to spend 5 minutes redoing everything to switch one skill or trait.

Think of the poor minstrels and their rezzing skill deed. There is no way to advance this other solo unless you happen on someone dead in the open world. RK healing skills have a similar problem for solo players, but at least you can advance then will fighting grey mobs as you can heal yourself. Solo Burglars also have issues with the deed for starting conjunctions.

Those are actually relatively easy deeds. For RKs, you don't even have to be in combat to work on your healing deeds. Just spam yourself in town. It's what I did on both RK and mini. Captains and LMs don't have any issues either, because although their heals are primarily external ones, they have pets to cast them on.

For rezzers, all you need to do is find one person to die once, and you just keep hitting your rez skill on them until you're capped for the day. 10 days of that and you're done. I frequently die for lowbie captains so they can just knock out their deed for the day.

The CJ thing is the thing I see the biggest issue with, but you could just fellow with someone in an entirely different zone and CJs will still pop. It's weird, but last I checked it worked.