Official Discussion: Helm's Deep NDA Drop.

[frickinmuck]

You only need to grind them if you're dedicated raider afraid that someone may find you without a perfect LI.

I LOLed. While I don't share your view of LIs (I do try to make mine the best I can), there is a lot of truth to this jest.

Grinding is what you make of it. To me grinding means doing something you hate doing just because there might be a reward in it... No one can ever force you to do it but yourself so it's too hard to claim that the game forces you to grind them.

While I do think complaints of grind-ishness are well founded (if you want certain things you really have no choice but to grind for them), I do feel that to a large degree, grinding is in the eye of the beholder. For me, if I want something, grinding to get it is enjoyable, because I am working toward a goal. For example (and I know a lot of people are going to think this is crazy), I love doing slayer deeds for virtues. It's satisfying to get them all done, I get a lot of gold and rep items doing them, and I find the process meditative and relaxing. However, Hytbold was painful and something I will only ever do once, on my main. It's highly unlikely I'd ever grind that godforsaken town ever again (they REALLY need to lower the token requirements of the rebuild quests to make this more rewarding and enjoyable). But then what do you get out of completing Hytbold? A couple titles. Most anticlimactic content of all time. A set of war-steed cosmetics or a unique and awesome housing item would have been appreciated... I digress... Yeah, grinding is a highly subjective thing.

[Kelepitra]

This makes me laugh. So if someone agrees with you they are awesome but if they do not agree they are just towing the party line because they are part of the player council?

Let me say this clearly. I speak for myself. My opinions. My words. Not Turbines, not the player councils.

Ah you're a player council, that'd explain things..
Seems like Turbine rattled up their player councils to provide positive feedback haha.
At least make it less obvious...

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

This is patently false. Why are you lying?



Everyone is free to take my word for it. I speak the truth, unfettered by... well, anything.

I think you speak what you believe to be the truth, though this is highly effective by a point of view that you have decided to continue to represent, despite the fact that there have been numerous and positive changes.

From what I could see on the beta forums, your main class is a captain (apologies if I've got that wrong). It is true that captains can no longer have a hybrid build, and I was one of the many who was angry about this through betas 1,2 and 3. However, by the time we reached beta 4, and onwards, a sense of coherency was returning to the class (in no small way influenced by the players) - if you want all the functionality that you would use to defend a group in the Moors, trait yellow, if you want to tank (though god knows why you would when there are perfectly good real tanking classes available) this is also the line for you. The red line dps is more powerful than ever before and can increase the dps of a fellowship significantly, and now blue line captains can keep a group up as main healer, even in trickier content (not just GB or Annuminas zergs). It is true that we can no longer use shield brother while in the red trait line, or used shield of the dunedain to keep up squishy hunters despite still doing dps ourselves, but to be honest, weren't we a little bit overpowered before, in that respect? The functionality of the class still remains, its just divided up, yet if you want to play the traditional role of the captain in groups - or at least my role as a Moors captain (that of buffer and helping the group to survive) - then the yellow line is still ready and waiting for you.

The changes are not perfect, far from it, and some of the changes are a bit underwhelming (like the yellow line tactics, or the herald buffs), however content will certainly playable, you will just be required to adapt. If you'd rather not bother with the new changes, then that is a choice that every person has to make themselves - but the classes are not destroyed, they are just different.

(P.S. I didn't try some classes, such as RK, LM, mini, so I can't say if these are still playable for all, but for the other classes apart from captain, there are significant improvements, whereas captain has shifted sideways instead, but isn't actually worse).

P.P.S. So in summary, I'd say that, while these changes will take some considerable getting used to, these changes are playable for all, and have the potential to by enjoyable by many - as long as people don't keep looking backwards.

[Rhuvor]

The dev's promised Helm's Deep will bring 'tough choices' with regards to the class changes... The only choice for many players will be if they keep playing or not, alas I don't think the choice will be all that tough in the end.

Easy choice for me. I continue to love this game and I have moved from coming to terms with the class changes to looking forward to Nov 18th so I can tinker with my characters as I select their traits and set up the various trees for each character.

My tough choice is deciding which character to focus on first, and do I launch myself into Helm's Deep with my main or tinker with all my other characters first. Also, I'm planning on starting a new Guard so that I can get a good understanding on how the changes affect new and low level characters.

Yep, you are right Spider, so many "tough choices" as I continue to thoroughly enjoy this game since March/April 2007.

[Andthelion]

This is what this beta has been all about. Just a massive, massive amount of vitriol being spouted out of frustration and anger because some people just really hate change. The funny part is, people are complaining that the game is too easy, while whining they don't want to have to relearn their classes or make tough decisions about their builds.

And THIS is what the beta test has been all about, anyone who dared to speak their mind and point out the flaws in this system had this happen to them.But it was just us negative posters that were hurling abuse and vitriol wasnt it?

After B1 I was told I was being knee jerk, so I went back and tried the changes again in B2

Still didnt like them.

After B2 i was told i was too resistant to change. So I went back and tried them in B3

still didnt like them

Then i got told i was a doomspreader, a naysayer, I was called poisonous, toxic, venomous, was accused of only being in beta to try my best to cripple lotro, told I was whining for whinings sake, told to "suck it up" , told "if you dont like it just shut up and go find something else to whine about"

And even now, it continues, I have friends who left beta because of this kind of abuse above, friends who were sick of having comments like that of frickinmuck's shot at them for being so utterly terrible as to publicly voice their dislike for something they were invited to test and encouraged to leave opinions on.

This ladies and Gents is why you have the expansion you are so very near getting, because the people who cared about this game and wanted to make it is a fun as possible for their friends and kinnies who were not in beta, were treated like this, that is a prime example of how important our opinions were, any negative comment whatsoever and you were resistant to change, challenge that notion and you became "toxic" who's only goal was to bring lotro to its knees. Say you liked the trees and you were thanked for your positive well constructed feedback.

[Jurny]

Just a massive, massive amount of vitriol being spouted out of frustration and anger because some people just really hate change. The funny part is, people are complaining that the game is too easy, while whining they don't want to have to relearn their classes or make tough decisions about their builds.

The fact that some people adjust more easily then others (like yourself), is no reason to belittle them.

And as for your last comment : "people are complaining that the game is too easy, while whining they don't want to have to relearn their classes or make tough decisions about their builds"


Those 2 things have nothing to do with each other. It's derogatory statements like this, that starts the whole vitriol back up again. It's funny you don't see it, or maybe, this is your plan? Hmmm...


I see nothing wrong with people not wanting to relearn thier classes again! I fear that once this goes live you'll be seeing alot more "whining" as you so eloquently put it, then there was in beta.

Why is it that some people feel thier opinion matters more then others, it's beyond me.

[frickinmuck]

Oh - landscape and such is gated behind Epic, correct? So no crossing the river without purchasing HD? So no, the zones are not explorable then? (Would love this to be wrong)

It is wrong. Those lands are explorable by simply crossing the river.

Welcome to the pom-pom shaking from the majority of the Player's Council we've had to put up with during the Beta.

I am not on the player's council. Many others here are not on the council.

I really wish people would stop perpetuating this nonsense as a way to completely dismiss criticism (or use it as a passive-aggressive insult). It was enough to have it preached like a mantra for weeks.

I don't use it as a way to dismiss criticism. In fact, as I've said many times, constructive criticism and even frustrated, directionless criticism is totally valid and well within people's rights. If I use it to dismiss anything, I use it to dismiss the harsh, adversarial nastiness of some of the more negative people.

But the real reason for that phrase is that it tends to be true in these types of situations. Anyone who's ever spent any time on Facebook has probably witnessed this firsthand: Facebook changes around the layout of the page, people FREAK out and for days, even weeks, there's nothing but hate posts about Facebook changing things around, and how much the layout sucks. Then a few months pass and everything is quiet. Suddenly Facebook changes the layout of the page again. Those same people FREAK OUT and totally lose their goat droppings over the change, and talk about how much they hate the new layout. In other words, they are angry that the page they hated so much has changed.

Some people are slower to adapt and adopt. That's just the reality of things. Most of the people threatening to quit will not quit. Some of the most vocal haters will grow to enjoy the new system in time. Many people prefer instant gratification over an investment in the long-term. I've seen this in my professional life a LOT. People think they need everything yesterday, but when the time comes they end up holding things up long past the date they complained was too far off. Because a couple months sounds like a long time but it flies by faster than they might think. Many people also dislike something they don't have a mastery over. I've seen people complain and complain, for example, about certain software "sucking" because it can't do this, it can't do that. Only to later find it was because THEY can't yet do this, THEY can't yet do that. As soon as they learn the software, they can't live without it.

Of course, this isn't always true for everyone, but there is definitely a measure of this in every major change across a large group of people.

[Lohi]

1. Threat generation is going to be primarily DPS based.

2. Tanks will have little inherent Threat Generation other than the 300% modifier on their base damage. I do not see tanks being able to do 1/3rd the DPS of a full DPS class.

3. Tanks will be getting threat catch up added to their Snap Taunts, however this amounts to little more than "Threat +1". and We will be looking at tanks doing nothing but attempting to DPS and waiting on their Snap Taunts to get off Cooldown.

Bleh...

I'd been waiting for some word on this. Even today, because of stat inflation I find it very hard to keep up with threat. Ie, if I have 2nd age and and a DPS class has extremely high Agility or might or Will, whereas my extremely high stat is Vitality, then I can get aggro pulled away from me. Even if I hit every single threat skill when I can and I get a lucky stream of blocks/parries to unlock them quickly. In Isengard this is what forced me to switch from yellow defensive line to blue threat line, just to keep up. Rohan didn't really get worse though for me but I didn't do the Erebor stuff.

So now with this change though, it really means it's going to hurt. Ie, if I have Vitality gear and my Might on Guardian is let's say in the 300-500 range, is there any remote hope of holding threat against a hunter with 2500 Agility and a first age? My base damage with axe and shield is pitiful but that's ok because I was tanking instead of damaging.

Is this going to be a repeat of Moria Phase 1?

[frickinmuck]

And THIS is what the beta test has been all about, anyone who dared to speak their mind and point out the flaws in this system had this happen to them.But it was just us negative posters that were hurling abuse and vitriol wasnt it?

After B1 I was told I was being knee jerk, so I went back and tried the changes again in B2

Still didnt like them.

After B2 i was told i was too resistant to change. So I went back and tried them in B3

still didnt like them

Then i got told i was a doomspreader, a naysayer, I was called poisonous, toxic, venomous, was accused of only being in beta to try my best to cripple lotro, told I was whining for whinings sake, told to "suck it up" , told "if you dont like it just shut up and go find something else to whine about"

And even now, it continues, I have friends who left beta because of this kind of abuse above, friends who were sick of having comments like that of frickinmuck's shot at them for being so utterly terrible as to publicly voice their dislike for something they were invited to test and encouraged to leave opinions on.

This ladies and Gents is why you have the expansion you are so very near getting, because the people who cared about this game and wanted to make it is a fun as possible for their friends and kinnies who were not in beta, were treated like this, that is a prime example of how important our opinions were, any negative comment whatsoever and you were resistant to change, challenge that notion and you became "toxic" who's only goal was to bring lotro to its knees. Say you liked the trees and you were thanked for your positive well constructed feedback.

OK this is just getting out of hand. If you were really so badly treated that you were driven out of beta then I am genuinely sorry to hear it. But don't take that anger out on me just because I say something you dislike.

Unfortunately (and this is clear if you just read the previous postings in this thread) this was an extremely polarizing beta, and people on both sides felt slighted by each other. There were positive people who felt hated and driven out by negative people, and negative people who felt hated and driven out by positive people. My suggestion: let's just put a stop to it right now and try to find some common ground, and a way to move forward and enjoy the game (or leave the game, if that's your choice). Anything else is just escalation of an already annoying and distracting conflict.

[Andthelion]

OK this is just getting out of hand. If you were really so badly treated that you were driven out of beta then I am genuinely sorry to hear it. But don't take that anger out on me just because I say something you dislike.

Unfortunately (and this is clear if you just read the previous postings in this thread) this was an extremely polarizing beta, and people on both sides felt slighted by each other. There were positive people who felt hated and driven out by negative people, and negative people who felt hated and driven out by positive people. My suggestion: let's just put a stop to it right now and try to find some common ground, and a way to move forward and enjoy the game (or leave the game, if that's your choice). Anything else is just escalation of an already annoying and distracting conflict.

You didnt just say something I disliked you said I and others like me are spouting vitriol because of frustration and anger and are simply resistant to change,its demeaning, dismissive and I am tired of hearing that pathetic lazy line. I dislike the changes.NOT because I am resistant to change, not because I am toxic or venomous its because they do not fit into how I like to play this game.And I completely within my rights to express those thoughts too.

Yes both sides went too far and yes I whole heartedly agree its time to move on, but posts like yours (whether you intended it or not) only serve to restart the whole thing again, if you dont want an escalation then dont poke the bear.

[TKH]

So now with this change though, it really means it's going to hurt. Ie, if I have Vitality gear and my Might on Guardian is let's say in the 300-500 range, is there any remote hope of holding threat against a hunter with 2500 Agility and a first age? My base damage with axe and shield is pitiful but that's ok because I was tanking instead of damaging.
?

A hunter with 2k5 Agi will soon to be the past. Expect something like 4,000-5,000 if well-built in HD

With the level cap increase, I doubt that you still want to use your current lv85 equipment to tank at lv95. You will want to build a Guardain with a balance between Threat Generation and Survivability, meaning Might and Vitality at the max level. Also, Tanking Guardian in HD is a lot tougher than the current Guardian, if I don't mistake.

[Lohi]

It was enough to have it preached like a mantra for weeks.

I can feel the frustration there. Whenever I would discuss things I disliked with Windows 8 on some sites, someone would always pop in with "you just hate change!" as if that nullified all my arguments.

[Grimdi]

Disclaimer: I've only spent a few hours total in beta stretched over different builds, so some of the below is an extrapolation from that and not first-hand experience.

Others have said enough about the class changes, I don't really like them but could probably handle it if the rest of the game were still motivating. However ...

Epic Battles: I think comparing them to skirmishes isn't fair. Because skirmishes are still somewhat interesting in comparison, while Epic Battles feel more like a Tower Defense minigame where your character skills/attributes are rendered mostly irrelevant by the new "role" mechanics and NPCs. Sure you can still hit the enemies and heal friendlies, but any nameless Rohirrim will be more effective at it than you. That is of course due to allow upscaled lowlevel chars to compete in them, as those won't have enough useful skills and scaled character stats can vary a lot (see below). If they'd implemented this as a session play it wouldn't have made much difference (it would actually have reduced confusion I think). On top of that these things are boring by sending the same wave over and over for what feels like an eternity, no random LTs requiring special tactics. Sidequests seem interesting on paper, but it generally boils down to simply defend another spot.

Promotion system: Huge grind, and at current state the maximum number of points you can get doesn't allow you even allow you to get 50% of a single tree, which only helps you in Epic Battles in the first place. Not exactly something that would encourage me to spend a lot of time.

Reward system: Well, not much change here, gold items are removed from instances completely, and I think there was no change to the general reward system there. Epic Battle rewards are based on your achievements in that new space, but the actual items are still chosen by the RNG. Overall no improvements at all to what many consider one of the worst changes brought by RoR.

Itemization: This is what actually concerns me the most. HD will bring us a huge increase in item level (teals go from 97 in RoR to 176 in HD) and therefore stats, and all new gear has a large amount of vitality and a larger amount of your primary stat (likely reversed for tank pieces). So fully geared at 95 most people will have >3k primary stat and >2k vitality (going by stats seen on crafted guild items, balance might be a bit different for EB/instance gear). This is in total contradition to the claim of specialization from the class revamp, as glass cannon builds aren't available anymore. Glass cannons would of course be totally OP with the new item level, as can be seen by upscaled 85 gear in Epic Battles resulting in mastery values of 60-80k (coming close to 200% outgoing damage as a result). Basically this just confirms that there is no plan at all for overall balancing, esp. with now three pretty different itemization schemes (pre RoI, RoI to HD, post HD) being used in the same content (Epic Battles).

In summary, from a game mechanics POV, I see a lot of things that concern me deeply, a few things I'm not sure about yet and not much I'd consider an improvement. And that is compared to the (mechanically) relatively poor state of the current live game. I originally planned to get HD with deed TPs on launch day (so no money involved), but my beta experience (not even considering all the bugs still in the last version) convinced me to take a long break from Lotro and _maybe_ revisit it in a few months to see if things turned out better/worse/as expected.

[Lohi]

I am not on the player's council. Many others here are not on the council.

I think TheStormKing is though, and unless I completely failed to spot the sarcasm, he did not appear to be a Turbine cheerleader.

[4tesZeitalter]

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.

Platinum medal for main quests is also possible in solo. But sometimes you will have to switch your promotion trees during the battle to achieve them.

I finished "Glittering Caves" with 4 platinum medals (3 side quests ant the main quest) yesterday.

[frickinmuck]

You didnt just say something I disliked you said I and others like me are spouting vitriol because of frustration and anger and are simply resistant to change,its demeaning, dismissive and I am tired of hearing that pathetic lazy line. I dislike the changes.NOT because I am resistant to change, not because I am toxic or venomous its because they do not fit into how I like to play this game.And I completely within my rights to express those thoughts too.

Yes both sides went too far and yes I whole heartedly agree its time to move on, but posts like yours (whether you intended it or not) only serve to restart the whole thing again, if you dont want an escalation then dont poke the bear.

I never at any point said anything to or about you. I was talking specifically about the beta forums, which were a battlefield at times. And I have repeatedly qualified my comments by pointing out that they don't apply to everyone. As I said, change aversion can only explain part of the anger/dislike.

People are jumpy and tetchy and that's just the way it's going to be until the dust has cleared. I hear you're PO'd, but I am too. There have been many comments that "poke the bear" on both sides. One thing we can agree on, everyone has a right to their own opinion and means of expression.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

Bleh...

I'd been waiting for some word on this. Even today, because of stat inflation I find it very hard to keep up with threat. Ie, if I have 2nd age and and a DPS class has extremely high Agility or might or Will, whereas my extremely high stat is Vitality, then I can get aggro pulled away from me. Even if I hit every single threat skill when I can and I get a lucky stream of blocks/parries to unlock them quickly. In Isengard this is what forced me to switch from yellow defensive line to blue threat line, just to keep up. Rohan didn't really get worse though for me but I didn't do the Erebor stuff.

So now with this change though, it really means it's going to hurt. Ie, if I have Vitality gear and my Might on Guardian is let's say in the 300-500 range, is there any remote hope of holding threat against a hunter with 2500 Agility and a first age? My base damage with axe and shield is pitiful but that's ok because I was tanking instead of damaging.

Is this going to be a repeat of Moria Phase 1?

Threat is probably my biggest problem with the class changes in HD. Essentially, the forced aggro catch ups have such low cooldowns that there is always one ready to grab aggro when needed, however, AoE aggro is going to be awful, especially if we face up against a yellow traited champ or a LM. How a guard is meant to hold aggro with only challenge (and shield taunt) against sticky gourd and spammed raging blades/blade storm, I don't really know... While sweeping cut, whirling retaliation and vexing are all AoE, they are power hungry skills, and we lose the threat over time mechanic that we had for sweeping and vexing that was attached to litany master, which I imagine is going to make AoE tanking a case of sitting there waiting for challenge to come off cd. Single target tanking should be easy enough (if the numbers are right, with the 300% passive threat increase) but I have my doubts on that too.

[Kongas]

The class changes are drastic, so you really have to try them yourself. After months of beta, many are choosing to move on from Lotro, or to resign themselves to accepting the changes, yet others love them.

Some classes will enter Beta 2.0 on Nov. 18 so you might be better off taking a break or working an alt for several months, prime among these is the minstrel.

If you have not already purchased HD by this time, don't purchase it until you've had a chance to figure out if you like what it offers. I don't think it's worth $40, and I don't think it's worth 4300 TP for a quest pack, a "Big Skirmish" pack and a main class that is broken and boring. YMMV.

I second this. Try before you buy. I am a long-standing, high-spending LOTRO fan. I want into the beta in a positive state of mind and excited by the new possibilities a tree system could bring. At the end of my first Beta 1 session I went off the check out other games. By the end of Beta 4 I had taken out a sub on two of them.

I'm afraid these changes are simply too much for me. It's too simplistic, too unchallenging and the hunter is simply a boring 3-4 button dps monkey now. No fun to play at all.

But other opinions and tastes will differ which is why I say - try before you buy.

I'm going to end by repeating what I said in beta at one point:

"When a guy who is nearly 60, with no reflexes to speak of, is telling you the game is now too slow and unchallenging to be any fun, then you have some real problems."

[Egilric]

I am wondering why they have spent the last couple of years making this into a 'solo-friendly' game, and are now pushing our classes into more grouping roles without developing grouping content? Or am I completely off here? *confused*

I raised this exact point in the Beta forums.

The content concept of the game for that few years has been to make the game more solo friendly, this enables Turbine to make LOTS of money from Store Content that nake sit increasingly easier to solo everything.

That means each player must have some degree of DPS/Tanking/Heal/Crowd Control abilities.

And most, if not all classes, had got to a point where they had that; everyone had to be a "jack of all trades" simply because that was what the content demanded of them.

(S)Trait (Jackets) Trees remove that ability. It is all well and good people saying "oh but is only a few presses to change trait lineups" but that misses the point that you can't do that "in combat" and it is in combat that you need to be able to change focus and drop in a bit of CC, increase you tanking ability etc. TTs do not allow that.

But the concept of the content hasn't changed. Its still pretty much faceroll-solo-city type content.

If the ONLY incentive for grouping is that my toon has been gimped so badly I need a 6 man group to cross the road then the problem is NOT player expectations it is developer vision and ability.

There's no need to group up for 90%+ of the content, and if as other are reporting there's no need to present at the keyboard for the Battles, then where is the design justification for straight-jacketing people in to very, very limited skill choices (I am opposed to using that word because it has been grossly misused by Turbine in selling this Expac - we get less than 30% of the choices we currently have) with a single-role in mind?

A further note on this "choice" thing, Turbine keep telling us we have more choices with the TT, we don't.

As it stands I have 25 Traits to choose from, and I can use almost all of them without restriction. There are three that are restricted - the Trait Line Capstones. That means I will have restricted choices about only 12% of my total traits. I have 88% free choice over my traits.

Come the introduction of Trait Trees ALL of my Traits except the Tier 1 traits in each Trait Tree will be gated, and even the baseline traits in the secondary and tertiary trees will be limited by cost; That means 95% of my traits will have restrictions on my choice to use them - I have just 5% free choice over my traits.

If anyone can explain how 5% Free Choice is greater than 88% Free Choice I'll be open to being convinced that Trait Trees offer us "more choice".

Back to Solo / Group..

The design ideology behind all recent content has been to maximise the revenue from the store. New potions with different CDs. potions with scaling returns etc. Most of which is of MOST immediate benefit to solo players. In effect Turbine have designed content so that the The Store becomes the support normally offered by a group. There's nothing wrong with this from a business model point of view; but it is extremely disappointing from a game design point of view.

Thus the design ideology of the content MUST change direction BEFORE the proposed class changes go ahead.

Its simply not viable to make the classes un-soloable while maintaining a solo content ideology.

This is THE issue Turbine needs to address if Helm's Deep is to be a success - both commercially, and for the game (Note: the two are rarely the same).

All The Best

[Macroscian]

Was any player feedback heeded? By way of "Do not do this" and "Change that" rather than listening solely to "This works"?

I don't care if beta meant people had a say, I'm concerned with the bit that the input had an effect.

Not bug testing. Testing for bugs you can do on your own. I'm interested in if anything changed at all during the beta, other than bugfixes.

[Kongas]

I realize it's in the interest of some people who like class changes to make it look like there's this big stalemate with roughly even numbers of people who are for and against them. Yes, opinions on them varies, which aspect in life doesn't. But people coming here reading this thread should make no mistake - there is CLEAR MAJORITY of beta players who don't like or hate the changes. And there's data to support it.

Yea - 'opinion was divided' in the same way that 'opinion is divided' over whether the Earth is flat (I exaggerate only slightly). Referring to expressed opinions on the forum. Before the mass Silencing.

[Andthelion]

Was any player feedback heeded? By way of "Do not do this" and "Change that" rather than listening solely to "This works"?

I don't care if beta meant people had a say, I'm concerned with the bit that the input had an effect.

Not bug testing. Testing for bugs you can do on your own. I'm interested in if anything changed at all during the beta, other than bugfixes.

Yes, lots of feedback was heeded and indeed changes were made due to that feedback, but ONLY in the areas they wanted feedback in, from day 1 NO feedback on in combat swapping, out of spec points cost, total amount of points we had at 95 etc were not even entertained, not 1 little bit.

I put in a suggestion to allow all traits to be unlocked but only to select what you pay for.

For example you spend 10 points in the red line and you unlock ALL red line traits, however you can only put 1 of them into your build, spend another 10 points and you can choose a 2nd trait, so you could choose any 2 out of the 6 available and so on and so on. This still doesnt allow us to have all the traits all the time in our builds but it does allow the player to choose the traits they wish to choose rather than have them forced on us. THAT is flexibility, that allows choice. But no-one ever responded to that, not even to say "no we cant do that, because of x,y,z" the only response we ever got regarding the tree system was to say "stop talking about it , they are coming as they are, give it up"

[Goodgoing]

A question about the landmass. How big is West Rohan compared to East Rohan? Is it slightly bigger or much bigger?

[Atheling]

Was any player feedback heeded? By way of "Do not do this" and "Change that" rather than listening solely to "This works"?

I don't care if beta meant people had a say, I'm concerned with the bit that the input had an effect.

Not bug testing. Testing for bugs you can do on your own. I'm interested in if anything changed at all during the beta, other than bugfixes.

Yes it was. It's unfair and untrue for anyone to deny that. A large amount of the changes from beta1 to what will hit live has come from player feedback. The devs are clearly working all hours to try and implement ideas, picking up on some long standing issues (I'd point to the attempts to make burg rotations flow better as a really good example of that). There are some things which just weren't ever going to be changed. That message was conveyed bluntly, if honestly, too. If a player's problems were with something which fell under 'this will not change' then no amount of tweaking of that is going to resolve the issue. Likewise some classes, purely from their initial design concept and subsequent evolution, have bigger issues fitting into the changes than others - no matter on the implementation or changes made around the edges.

[Radbug]

Dear live forums

Welcome to the pom-pom shaking from the majority of the Player's Council we've had to put up with during the Beta. I'll leave you to make up your own minds about the changes and the new End Game. The brevity of this post is indicative of my feelings.

Good luck.


EDIT: I was another of those 'vocal minority' people.

I am not on the player's council. Many others here are not on the council.

Then my post was not directed at you. But thanks for responding whoever you are.

I think TheStormKing is though, and unless I completely failed to spot the sarcasm, he did not appear to be a Turbine cheerleader.

I took the time to include my original message and bold some of it for the hard of reading. Please take the time to read what people actually post.

Cheers.