Developer Diary : Minstrel Class Changes in Helm’s Deep

[VeryBeary]

[QUOTE=bastiat1;6937763]Orion, I hope you're having fun on "Infinite Crisis". We miss ya over here brotha.

Here is what a real Dev Diary looks like- for posterity's sake....



Oh, wow, does that ever bring back memories! I printed it out at the time and carried it to work every day, reading it at lunch when I got the chance to take a lunch. Yes, that was splendid--it was my study guide :-)!

VeryBeary

[asearchforreason]

I had glanced quickly at previous class dev diaries and when it was clear there was no substance to them, I stopped reading. I actually read this one since my main freep has been a minstrel for some time. I found that I know almost nothing more than when I started. Thank you for posting Orion's diary to remind us of how Turbine should communicate these changes to the players.

It's almost as if the devs were given 30 minutes to write each dev diary and not a minute longer.

[Gedrevn]

Pretty disappointing development overall. Kinda sad with one of the more complex classes, we get by far the shortest of all the class dev diaries.

Watcher of Resolve: If you look at our skills now, it just sounds like all of them were transported over, but instead of being useful all the time (virtues) or until you coda, they're now only temporary and gated behind critical responses (induction reduction) or tier completion (outgoing healing buff temporary after codas). Plus it sounds like we also need to re-gear for all crit. Doesn't seem like a great trade off. It also seems like there were a lot of 1 offs. For example looking at piercing cry and saying "well everyone loves slotting Unrelenting, let's pander to that and add a heal that's insignificant and unpredictable."

Warrior-Skald: This was said well by a few folks now. Minstrel's have FIVE AoE skills and an AoE resetting anthem. Changing this style to single target focus is a huge kick to the face, let alone the no mention of healing, which is the other staple of even being able to solo a single creature as a squishy with limited CC. The set bonus thing sounds pretty cool, but the whole dev diary piece on Call of Orome? I'm sorry but "revealing" a skill that sounds identical to the one we have now...

Protector of Song: I like the idea that this is now going to be a buff / debuff line, especially since debuffing would add a new segment of play that Minstrel really hasn't seen before - and maybe this is just an issue with the level of detail in the dev diary - but it sounds like the debuff may be just limited to Echoes of Battle, which really wouldn't make this a debuff line. And the Legendary skill, well it sounds pretty amazingly not legendary. Here's the current Call to Greatness, which is marginally useful, compared to our "legendary skill"

Current: Captain gains an Enemy Defeat Response and gains the Battle-readied state every 5 seconds.
LEGENDARY: Captain will gain a Defeat Response and enter a Battle-readied state every few seconds.

Current: Hunters receive -10% Threat generation, +3 Focus, and +2 Focus every 5 seconds.
LEGENDARY: Hunters will receive a constant drip of extra focus to use. (<--- This one is actually worse!!!)


I'm also a bit confused at how the stances will work. It seems like the trait lines replace what our current stances do now, so adding them back in on top of the skill changes needs way more description than just a mention, unless the fundamentals just meant how things work now and they're going away completely.

[Moskvich]

'The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" said the warrior bard,
"Though all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"'
(From 'The Minstrel Boy,' by Thomas Moore)

The lyrics seem strangely on topic...

[FromgalTheMinstrel]

It took almost 1 and a half year before everyone was most happy with Orion's Warden and Minstrel. Now, in a blink the Minstrel is all messed up again. I fear what will they do with the much more complex Warden. I really do.

Also, I do really hope you have the previous revision of the Minstrel files at hand in your version control system, DeviledEgg.
If there is something worse than getting your favorite class butchered in a "StarWars Galaxies: New Game Experience" kind of update to a game you have been playing for 6 years, that is having to wait for months until the developer that messed it up first swallows his pride, then manages to revert all the stupid changes back to the previous version.
Let's see what lasts longer, the developer's stubbornness or the players' patience.
I fear it will be the first.

[Maligree]

Here is what a real Dev Diary looks like- for posterity's sake....

The Orion minstrel manual appeared a week after NDA was lifted and less than a month before the release (26/8 - 1/9 - 27/9), of course then there is more in depth information ...

[Saermar]

I've never seen an actual dev post anything in these dev diaries beyond the initial post.

The initial post has very little real information.

No point in discussing anything until we get real data. Waste of time.

Makes me worried. Helm's Deep is a like a movie they don't show to critics before release.

[bastiat1]

The Orion minstrel manual appeared a week after NDA was lifted and less than a month before the release (26/8 - 1/9 - 27/9), of course then there is more in depth information ...

Will you be back here posting and eating crow when HD is released and no new "more in depth" Dev Diaries are forthcoming? If they do, I will be post here to eat crow.

[Thorandril]

from a strictly PvP perspective Orion ruined whatever fickle balance there was by turning both the champion and minstrel into dps/immortal hybrids, this linearization of class roles will undo some of the damage he has done to the intricacy of both PvE and PvP.

people seem rather unwilling to part with what they shouldn't have in the first place, unsurprisingly

at least throw a bone to minstrels for single target by making their DPS equal to the new single-target berserker champ.

it was very difficult to read that and believe you were actually being serious for the rest of the post, if it hasn't been obvious now they seem to be doing away with the idea that every class should be capable of everything while knitting and sipping tea

[Drexorn]

I haven't played this game in close to 4 years (never went into Moria, before it went F2P). I had a lvl50 Minstrel with a lifetime membership in all blue armor at the time when I quit. I tried the other day and was totally and utterly confused. I'm hoping they simplify things so I can get back in and lvl this guy back up and explore.


---Edit----
Hmmm, 1st post. Seems all my old posts were deleted too.

[Darlgon]

I haven't played this game in close to 4 years (never went into Moria, before it went F2P). I had a lvl50 Minstrel with a lifetime membership in all blue armor at the time when I quit. I tried the other day and was totally and utterly confused. I'm hoping they simplify things so I can get back in and lvl this guy back up and explore.


---Edit----
Hmmm, 1st post. Seems all my old posts were deleted too.

New forums, but that should not have pruned your posts. Oh, have not played in four years? Yeah... those posts were prob pruned a long time ago.

Actually, your join date shows Oct 2013? You sure you did not accidentally create a new free account? The EU people all show Apr 2011, I think, but the rest of us show the correct join date at the top right hand corner. You need to log into the forums with your user ID and PW, like you do into the game now. That changed too.

Head into the Mini class discussion to find out what is changing in 11 days.

The big summary of what is going on in Beta is here..
https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...mmary-Minstrel

[Drexorn]

Ahh thanks Darlgon. My game account was all locked and I got it released. It looks like my forum account has been banned too. My account was probably hacked a while ago.
I opened a ticket, and in the mneantime I'll check out the link you sent.

This is what it says in my turbine account:

Subscription Plan

• LOTRO-Founder-Life

Game Version History

• Mines of Moria™ Standard
• 2009 Anniversary Program Reward
• Shadows of Angmar™ Standard
• Siege of Mirkwood™
• Shadows of Angmar™ Pre-order (EBGames™/GameStop™)
• Shadows of Angmar™

[zoxtrel]

Tier 6 of the deeds requires Heralded Saviour, using "Song of Aid" 400 times. I cannot find "Song of Aid" in any tree or any longer on my skills panel. Help!

[Namesse]

Tier 6 of the deeds requires Heralded Saviour, using "Song of Aid" 400 times. I cannot find "Song of Aid" in any tree or any longer on my skills panel. Help!

You will have to trait Yellow line to get this skill to do the deed.

Kind of a big drawback to the whole tree thing, people will trait red to level on landscape, and there are skill deeds gated in other trees. Even if you swap to another trait set up while standing around, that's still leaving out 1 tree and its skill deeds.