Official Discussion: Helm's Deep NDA Drop.

[Hatter_of_Bree]

Ok, before we start, i did preorder the HD before the beta started. The preorder options were good to have now. Im not sure, i would still preordered had i known exact amount of changes.

Like - the landscape. Its great, and likable, and quests are good.

Big Battles - in current state, they are just a few playthrys, and you have seen all there is. Further repetition highly unlikely. But it contains quite a grind and advancement. It's possble, the devs will add some more things to BB post launch, like more group size variability...

Class changes. Ok, i can understand why it was done, and for a good reasons, but also there's good saying, where roads made from good reasons will lead... The 2:1 penalty and the way one earns these few extra points for trees means, each class will be same single three variation for most of the levelling. Some dipping into other trees will be "point-wise logical" only after you get max out of your primary selected tree, and thats start at about 60+ levels. Also, at least for guard, theres only so much logical way to varie the skills picked in tree, before it goes counterproductive.

My beta guardian is a way stronger that live one. Im also finding myself looking for skills i no more have access to, regardless of what tree i am picking. Buit at least its still almost the same. My LM is for now unrecognizable by me, unfortunately...

[Jeffor]

I was among people who were shocked with the changes due to the beta1. Beta2 and beta3 were same - nothing good to tell about class changes.
But after beta4 there has been significant progress. I can live with my main now - there will be something new to learn but I have great hopes for future.
Thinking out loud: I have 55 points to spend on each of my 3 level 85 chars - So if we wait long enough we will have pleanty of points to spend once we get to Mordor (I can already see my hunter standing in front of the gates of Mordor maximized with all three lines) :-)
The graphics are gorgeous as always - /bow to designers :-)

One major thing that needs to be well done before this hit live - PvMP need to be balanced right - after this last round (beta5) I feel creeps are too weak. Please make our creeps OP so Etten remains a superb end game content. The feeling of happiness you get when you kill your kinnie on the other side is simply beautiful (evil grin).

I can't argue with the PVMP sentiments. The freep changes have thrown things for a loop for sure. Hopefully we have time for a few more balance passes before launch day. I like my new guard in PVMP and I want creeps to be a fair fight for my new toys.

[Veria]

Class changes: as other posters already said, many classes get screwed over and lose what they loved but none come close to the treatment "revamped" Minstrel got. None of this is exagerration. There have been about 30 pgs of class feedback thread and currently 25pg long thread with mostly great posts, detailed dps comparison, bugs, suggestions, etc. Unfortunately very very little of this was heard, or applied.

It's gona be harsh but our minstrel dev neither likes the class nor does she have knowledge of class, creativity and desire to bring meaningful improvements.

Suffice to say, while most other classes were getting page long changes almost every beta build and interaction with dev on forum few times a week, we kept getting handful of changes (or 0) and no word from her since early October.

Things broken with minstrel are too many to count just couple examples:

- red line has roughly survivability that of a hunter (so near none) while doing fraction of hunter dps. Along with losing all HoTs, Free Ppls Anthem, Rally!, no sane person should let minstrel "dps" in a group. Don't even think of going solo in moors. To the best of my knowledge, dps of every other class has improved.

- last build we got corruption removal on toggle skill. That gives our class unique option of removing corruptions from ourselves or our fellows with Melody.

- last build we also noticed brand new legacy: Dissonance swap buff. It gives up to 9% (at r9) damage buff that lasts amazing 8s when changing into dissonance stance (old warspeech)

- for no reason at all, stances traded places: Resonance is our new healing stance and Melody our new Harmony stance but dev forgot to also change most stance effects on skills. There has been tons of feedback and bug reporting regarding this but rate of fixing it is super slow, if it comes at all.

- one of the biggest controversies were giving Rally! only to blue line, removing Anthem of Free ppls, no incentive to trait out-of-spec in redline. None of this was heard.

- the only truly useful line is blue line. On the other hand, some claim it's so OP and boring it just comes down to pushing 3 buttons.

- we kept getting some insane changes at the beginning of beta. Such as: piercing cry stun only in harmony and deep in yellow line. Ground targeting for Cry of the Wizards (don't even ask..). Call of the Second Age was skill given only when choosing BLUE spec until beta 2. Beta 3 it got switched to YELLOW line spec. Finally beta 4 our dev stopped joking with us and made it general skill so that dps line may also have dps skill :P

-even our minstrel diary is wrong. It claimed in redline we're gona be single target specialists (thankfully it never was like that in any beta build). But just shows there's no vision for minstrel. It's probably also the only line in the game with 0 new skills for new expac.

All we ask for is give us dev who CARES.

[Isilmacil]

Platinum rewards for the side objectives in solo spaces? Yes

Platinum medal for the entire battle solo? Not happening. That can only be done in the group settings.

[Jeffor]

Per +JWB

Solo players are able to obtain platinum medals.

Thus: WAI

No I am talking about AFK character advancement.

[Andthelion]

There's a difference between "completing" an objective in Epic Battles and actually doing well on it. For example, you can complete something and get an iron medal, which rewards nothing at all. In order to get the better medals, you need to not only participate, but usually participate to a very high level. That said, some encounters are not balanced appropriately, with some too easy and others too hard, and this has been looked at in successive builds, and will hopefully be looked at further before and after launch.

For what it's worth, you cannot go AFK throughout a big battle and get a platinum medal. For every soldier and commander that dies, you lose some of your rating, which affects the final medal reward. It is also possible to fail entirely if some of the named characters die.

-Bel

Given that this is END GAME content I should highly hope it is possible to fail it.

Jeez guys this is supposed to be the pinnacle of the game and you are arguing over whether these are completable whilst afk, the very fact that that is a discussion shows you how ridiculous these things are

[Crell_1]

Platinum medal for the entire battle solo? Not happening. That can only be done in the group settings.

Of course it can. Don't see why not. The main battle, is simply a sum of the side objective medals minus any npc deaths/objects destroyed.
Obviously, you'll need some practice/promotions to get to that point, but its quite doable.

[Jamesm429]

One thing to remember: much of what happened in Helms Deep was a retreat, not an advance. You can retreat from the challenge or learn to crank the ballista and fire the catapults. When you see the orcs coming over the walls in waves after waves... will you Run or will you Stand and Fight?

That's pretty funny, because when the Orcs were coming over the wall and I was standing there ready to fight, all they did was run right past me....

[Jeffor]

Given that this is END GAME content I should highly hope it is possible to fail it.

Jeez guys this is supposed to be the pinnacle of the game and you are arguing over whether these are completable whilst afk, the very fact that that is a discussion shows you how ridiculous these things are

No it certainly does not. There's a lot to test and only so many hours in the day. Again, I am not debating the AFK part atm rather the myth that you can significantly advance your characters AFK which is what some people are trying to contend.

[Peresbert]

Turbine you have two weeks too. Remember that. The bug reports are higher than I have ever seen them in a successful BETA at this point before launch that I have participated in before (talking mostly about other games). This is not good. My personal opinion is that HD is at least a month away from a successful launch. Any sooner, without miracles occurring, will be a catastrophic failure. Important quests and instances are not sorted out, skill procs still not working properly and even some battle bugs and retuning need to be done and tested in two weeks. This is not looking good for a successful November 18th launch.

I'm surprised no one else wants to take this on. I see it hard for Turbine to get HD released successfully (very few bugs) on Nov 18th.

[Jeffor]

I'm surprised no one else wants to take this on. I see it hard for Turbine to get HD released successfully (very few bugs) on Nov 18th.

You are doing a great job on your own. Keep up the good work!

[Isilmacil]

Of course it can. Don't see why not. The main battle, is simply a sum of the side objective medals minus any npc deaths/objects destroyed.
Obviously, you'll need some practice/promotions to get to that point, but its quite doable.

Uhhh no, even if you get all of your side objectives platinum, the highest you could possibly get is maybe gold, or really high silver. +JWB mentioned to me that soloers cannot get a platinum medal for the overall battle. Whereas in the Deeping-Wall 12 man, you can get enough completed that its possible to get platinum, but it should be related to T2C challenge.

Anyway, its hard to describe Big Battles until you get to try them out.

[ChromiteSwiftpaw]

I'm surprised no one else wants to take this on. I see it hard for Turbine to get HD released successfully (very few bugs) on Nov 18th.

I think the dismissal of things that players felt needed to be changed took a lot of wind out of the sails. People don't want to spend the effort to argue for changes anymore.

[Sapience]

Given that this is END GAME content I should highly hope it is possible to fail it.

Jeez guys this is supposed to be the pinnacle of the game and you are arguing over whether these are completable whilst afk, the very fact that that is a discussion shows you how ridiculous these things are

I think you've missed the point entirely. It's not that you cannot 'fail', it's that you need to broaden your concept of failure to a non-binary condition.

Tolkien spelled out exactly what happens in Helm's Deep. When it happens and who is there when it does. So you are never going to prevent the wall from blowing up, for example. But, there are rewards for making sure, by way of exmaple, that no NPCs die before it does. It is entirely possible to 'fail' to do this perfectly. It is also possible to do this "almost" perfectly and still receive some credit for it. But for someone trying for a platinum score on that objective, yes you most definitely failed.

[Jeffor]

I think the dismissal of things that players felt needed to be changed took a lot of wind out of the sails. People don't want to spend the effort to argue for changes anymore.

There's a lot of feedback that they did listen to though. Many of us did continue our feedback and I did not find that effort to be wasted.

[Andthelion]

No it certainly does not. There's a lot to test and only so many hours in the day. Again, I am not debating the AFK part rather the myth that you can advance your characters AFK which is what some people are trying to contend.

The very fact you can stand there afk and not die shows you how pathetic they are, these are supposed to be EPIC BATTLES not picnics, I wanted it to feel chaotic, breathless, manic etc etc, stopping half way through to make a cup of tea to come back and find all is well is not epic, they are slow, clunky, dull and the most embarrasing excuse for end game I have ever encountered, this is the battle of the Hornburg, I dont wanna stand facing unselecetable orcs for 3 secs while they get there breath back after climbing a wall, I dont wanna stand around for 1/2 minute while the next wave jog along the field or sit there cranking a lever for 20 secs whilst the "hordes" of orcs ignore me and go on their merry way. On my Champ all I have to do I stand near the main npcs and constantly hit aoe skills whilst the screen is windowed and I watch Big bang theory, stopping every now and again to rebuild a wall.

[nelar]

It takes one keystroke and two mouse clicks to completely change specs, and it can be done anytime and anywhere as long as you are not in combat. People who realize that and take advantage of it, are going to find a LOT more varied play with their classes then those who stick with a single spec. So for example, if you are out on your own taking on normal landscape mobs, you won't need any survivability skills. Run into a signature, or elite, or some other difficult content, and a couple of seconds later you've switched to a spec that can handle it. So rather then cluttering up you toolbar with every possible skill you might ever want under any possible circumstance, you simply switch specs to match what you are doing at the time.

[Wilkor]

- red line has roughly survivability that of a hunter (so near none) while doing fraction of hunter dps. Along with losing all HoTs, Free Ppls Anthem, Rally!, no sane person should let minstrel "dps" in a group. Don't even think of going solo in moors. To the best of my knowledge, dps of every other class has improved.

Just going to address this part and it sounds like the developer has their head screwed on right regarding the mini in this aspect. What has happened is that minstrels have managed to delude themselves thanks to previous poor changes that they should be unkillable death machines who can faceroll everything in their path because damnit skill is for other people. WRONG. We have light armour so yes, you get hit as a mini, you go down like a sack of potatos. Get rid of this godmode complex and realise that tougher people should be taking the hits and your heals and buffs are meant for them. Ironically this means you might have to group up in a MMO.

As for DPS, again, minstels deluded into thinking they should be doing everything and all roles revolve around them. Minstrels are not a dps class, other classes are. We have our roles, they have theirs.

[mjk47]

Thought it might be worth setting down a "casual" players thoughts on HD Beta.

Landscape: As stunning as ever. A lot to see and explore. Well up to the high standards that Turbine's world builders have demonstrated so well in the past.

Skill/Trait Trees: Some people hate them with a vehemence that is terrible to behold. From my perspective, they made little difference. I settled on a build, and when I fight things, evenetually they die, so little change there for my play style. If you care deeply about the nuances of all your current multitude of skills, then you may, or may not, disapprove. If you just go out and bash things, that still works just fine.

Epic Battles; Didn't really appeael to me. I will do what I need to do in the Epic Quest line, but apart from that I doubt I will ever bother with them. (That said, I don't do Skirmishes/Instances/Raids, so my opionion is probably of little import on this topic.)

I have worked about half way through the Epic Quest Line, and so far have found it up to scratch.

I haven't yet delved too deeply into crafting.

Overall, I am pretty happy with things. At least as happy as with previous expansions. How well it goes down overall will depend on how the community divides.

[tkroll]

There is a lot that needs work in Helms Deep. Is the progress yes and sometimes its good. Not always.

The minstrel was my first main toon in this game. I loved it. I've always liked healing/support classes. And the minstrel offered a lot of flexibility.
Now that flexibility is much more difficult to achieve. Of the three classes I tested the minstrel is the class that I am the least happy with. It isn't just because of the trait trees, or out of spec penalties. It's the over all attitude that you have one job and it's all you can do. Healing is incredibly, incredibly potent but you have no dps with a healing set up. The dps set up doesn't seem powerful enough to sacrifice the ability to heal others for. Protector of Song- there seems to be some good there and if I play my minstrel after HD and still can't get the build I want then Protector is where I'll be (just another PoS minnie :P). The devs have thrown a few very small bones- they brought back Soliloquy of the Spirit (blue line only)and made Anthem of Composure accessible. But Anthem of the free peoples is gone. All three trait lines have passive "skills" with a primary purpose that seems just to suck up points.

The Hunter seems decently set up at the moment. Blue line inductions on the move are pretty darn nice. Your range is reduced but you can do some decent damage and it's a blast. I disagree with the comments about the class being dumbed down, found blue line more fun. Red line will be more work to master. You do a ton of damage but as on live now your mobility is severely reduced. However on the red line you have several roots available through pinning shot and low cut that allow you to root an enemy, get to range, and blast em with that panzerfaust....er um bow. Yellow line looks interesting but I didn't have enough time to test it appropriately. Agile Rejoinder is gone but I don't have too much of a problem with this, as heal it wasn't all that great. Hunter's still need work in the self heal survivability department.

The Champion was fun. I didn't spend as much time with it as the other two classes because honestly I didn't feel it was required. My champ was still a blender and still fun to play.

I only did the first epic battle...at first it was a little confusing. The tutorial helps a bit but sometimes it still feels hit and miss...But it was fun. Building a siege weapon and letting loose at a hord of orcs- oh that was fun. The basic battle wasn't difficult but some of the encounters were tough to locate at first. Walk around before starting the fight and check out as much as you can.

So to sum up- totally disapointed by the plans for the minstrel. I don't even want to play one right now but I'll give it a chance. Maybe something will shake loose. The hunter is going to be fun. Will it need some post expac work? Probably but it is fun. Champ is still fun. The Epic Battles have a lot of potential and can be a lot of fun.

As for the other classes and pvmp well other folks spent a lot more time there than I did. I think the devs will do well with Rohan scenery and the epic line.

[Alakranus]

Some people will be unhappy with the class changes and new tree system. As a burglar and hunter I am pretty pleased with where they are now....wasn't always the case but the devs have listened to player feedback and given us most of what we were asking for. I know lots of hunters are sad to see Agile Rejoinder go but I really don't miss it, mostly because I usually forget to use it or stuff is dead before I truly would have needed it. My favorite thing about the trees for burglars/hunters are that each build does have its own feel so it will be fun to play with the new stuff, learn new rotations and figure out the best build for a given situation. Least favorite is I do miss not having all of the available skills at my disposal but I can understand the need for change and there really was the problem of skill bloat. Plus now we can respec and swap builds out on the fly while out of combat, very good change and helps work around some of the skill limitations of the different builds. My truly least favorite thing will be having to redo my LI's yet again!

For me the good outweighs the bad in the expansion...I am more of a quest/story/Tolkien geek who really loves the look and feel of Western Rohan and really enjoy getting back to the true lore with Aragorn and company and Eomer, Théoden and Eowyn. This is my main focus when playing LOTRO, playing with friends, enjoying the world and exploring and in this the devs have really done a great job.

As far as big battles, there is a lot of info to take in and they will be confusing...combine that with the big class changes and I can see how people will feel lost. My plan and my advice for casual players like me is to enjoy the questing/epics/world first and work through the class changes as you play through Western Rohan. If you do feel like getting into the big battles, I recommend running them with friends instead of solo to start....everyone will be able to help each other learn the different mechanics and they are more fun when played through with others.

[Andthelion]

I think you've missed the point entirely. It's not that you cannot 'fail', it's that you need to broaden your concept of failure to a non-binary condition.

Tolkien spelled out exactly what happens in Helm's Deep. When it happens and who is there when it does. So you are never going to prevent the wall from blowing up, for example. But, there are rewards for making sure, by way of exmaple, that no NPCs die before it does. It is entirely possible to 'fail' to do this perfectly. It is also possible to do this "almost" perfectly and still receive some credit for it. But for someone trying for a platinum score on that objective, yes you most definitely failed.

Tolkien spelled out the story behind the 3 erebor raids recently released as well, but you can fail those.

[Peresbert]

There's a lot of feedback that they did listen to though. Many of us did continue our feedback and I did not find that effort to be wasted.

It's wasted when you've bugged the same thing for over a month. You send in the report with the benchmarks you set for the individual report, and nothing happens. Let's try this again next week, nothing. This continues to the point where I can go back to a 8-bit world if you just had everything working properly.

[Andthelion]

It takes one keystroke and two mouse clicks to completely change specs, and it can be done anytime and anywhere as long as you are not in combat. People who realize that and take advantage of it, are going to find a LOT more varied play with their classes then those who stick with a single spec. So for example, if you are out on your own taking on normal landscape mobs, you won't need any survivability skills. Run into a signature, or elite, or some other difficult content, and a couple of seconds later you've switched to a spec that can handle it. So rather then cluttering up you toolbar with every possible skill you might ever want under any possible circumstance, you simply switch specs to match what you are doing at the time.

err only if you see the mob before you start combat that is.
But anyway I could do all that before, run into a sig mob on my champ and I can switch to glory stance, switch LIs and gear and start using, aggressive exchange, hedge adamant etc etc. and didnt need to hide away while trying to retrait either.

[Lunasa]

Uhhh no, even if you get all of your side objectives platinum, the highest you could possibly get is maybe gold, or really high silver. +JWB mentioned to me that soloers cannot get a platinum medal for the overall battle. Whereas in the Deeping-Wall 12 man, you can get enough completed that its possible to get platinum, but it should be related to T2C challenge.

Anyway, its hard to describe Big Battles until you get to try them out.

You can get platinum in the solo battle just like you can get in a group battle. During Beta I got platinum medal on most quests in all 8 Battles which we get. This includes both side and main quests.

This was announced already many months ago in the some of the official "20 Questions", and this is how it worked in Beta since the moment when the Battles were shown to the testers.

The only difference in the Platinum medals which a player can obtain solo or in group is the amount of points it contributes towards the main reward. It is possible to say that the Platinum medals from the raid are more valuable and you need just a few of those for a piece of jewelry, while you need 20 medals from the solo Battles. But the reward is the same - jewelry with class-specific set bonuses.