Official Discussion: Helm's Deep NDA Drop.

[rodarin]

I have done all the betas but this one, they dont change much, beyond what I said, they adjust reps numbers and damage numbers but they dont change a lot of anything else. Semantic maybe. Or maybe this one beta was totally different than the previous 5, who knows.

Regardless this is now a free to play game, you get what you get, you can stomp and cry all you want, and the 'we vote with out wallets' ####. Yeah they dont care. I imagine they have sold as many pre orders as they always do. If not then I doubt it changes anything going forward. But since they are 'forcing' you to buy the expac to now get the epic story line then who really knows for sure.

But I havent heard anything that would make me spend actual cash to buy it. But that has been the case since Moria, the last one I did spend actual cash on, and even that one was borderline, but head and shoulders above any other expansion and half expansions since.

[andracy]

When people say "no one asked for this", they overlook how many times people have made this same type of comment that you're making here. It's something we had seen a lot of in various forms. Everything from there are too many skills, to the skills felt weak, or when we increased the cap there were complaints that there was nothing new just unexciting 'enhanced' skills or that when people took a break they came back to a screen filled with skills they couldn't remember how to use.

All of that feedback sent a very clear message.

Let me get it right sir, with all my respect for you, you want to tell us that the number of ppl who asked for skills rewamp/remove is bigger than the zillions of ppl who are moaning now on forums, including me, about making us bots and destroying our versatility and fun of play? And Turbine as nice and listening team immediately took all the efforts to quickly make the changes? I wonder what 5 years kids coming from pandas found the skills too many or too unexciting ...
After so many pages with an average or 90% of NON agree with changes and less than 10% happy with the new system, does Turbine still thinks that this awesome idea was ok? I never saw on forums complainings about skills, only about bugs, stuff unfinished, broken or missing, also lack of content. I wonder why those was never fixed though ...

and apologies for offtopic.

[Darlgon]

People can say what they want and spin all the analogies they want. Bottom line is - come Nov 18th people will be all judging for themselves whether they are having fun or not and then voting with their wallets. I'm not having fun so my vote is in. If people think that by some unlucky happenstance the few dozen malcontents in LOTRO all somehow got into beta then I suspect you, or more likely -Turbine accountants in the coming financial quarters - are going to be in for a surprise. But who knows. Nothing said here by any side will have any effect.

People know when they are having fun or not and if they are not, there's plenty of other companies happy to take their money.

Funny thing about that. With HD, you are expected to vote with your wallet BEFORE you can see whats in the box if you were not in Beta.

Sigh.. But,... I guess if they see server population drops about a month after..

Why a month? Because, those who come back to power level and get to end game, sounds like they will be done in a month, or less if they are too frustrated by the changes. This pretty much happens every new expansion anyways. Three months, max. Entire kins drop in on the new release, level and get into the new "raid" content, beat it and then leave, to repeat the process in another game.

What will then happen? Those who still daily log in and try to play the characters that they did not abandon for months at a time. If, they have low level tunes that are now FORCED to group on content in barren wastelands of server space, without another player in the Lonelands, or a kinnie willing to help them, they will be extremely frustrated. (Good thing the LFG tool works so well.. after all, I NEVER get directed tells from a level 46 in Moria to my level 85 in Hytbold saying, "I dont know you, come power level me, because you have the same quest as me.") IF, by that time, they still do not like the way their characters play, they will be gone soon after.

Now.. lets see if a positive works. Long time players continue to log in and server populations stabilize. Players learn to work with the new tools and learn new builds. Eventually, they forget this storm and remember the good old days before trait trees, but will be unwilling to go back to them.

BUT, what happens when Turbine wants money again? Will they say.. "Ya know, Turbine knew what they were doing after all, so I will blindly give them money for the next XPac?" Or, will they be more likely to say, "Turbine barely pulled this off last time.. lets see what happens after launch and check playability, then decide to buy."

(BTW, RoI (and the mess with wardens) made sure that my wallet stayed in my pocket for pre-orders after that. I got Rohan about a month after it was released with TP with my annual sub. Looks like HD will be the same. It is now just a matter of, will it be soon after launch or when it goes on sale. I already put the date of my annual sub expiration as the name of the sub, so I dont forget again.)

So.. I would guess voting with the wallet will be delayed until the next expansion or the next sub renewal. Who knows, maybe everything will be all rainbows and unicorns, come launch day and all this gloom and doom will be gone. Oh, wait I said the same thing with RoI.

[Thorwyn99]

What will then happen? Those who still daily log in and try to play the characters that they did not abandon for months at a time. If, they have low level tunes that are now FORCED to group on content in barren wastelands of server space, without another player in the Lonelands, or a kinnie willing to help them, they will be extremely frustrated. (Good thing the LFG tool works so well.. after all, I NEVER get directed tells from a level 46 in Moria to my level 85 in Hytbold saying, "I dont know you, come power level me, because you have the same quest as me.") IF, by that time, they still do not like the way their characters play, they will be gone soon after.

I have no real big feelings about the trait revamp either way, but why would you think you're forced to group on solo content ? The landscape is generally easy enough there should not be a problem soloing it(Unless it is an actual group quest), even with the revamp.

[Darlgon]

Now, for an attempt to ask a real question:

Was this ever proposed in Beta? To change the skill trees to be something like this:

Primary line all one point top to bottom

Secondary and third line
First Tier only 1 pt,
Second and successive tiers 2 pt

As has been mentioned, true hybrid classes like LM and Captain will definitely need access to more than just one line. Could this achieve the effect we need in those classes?

[furtim]

I have done all the betas but this one

... Which rather limits your ability to speak about whether Turbine was responding to feedback and making serious changes during this beta, don't you think?

Was this ever proposed in Beta? To change the skill trees to be something like this:

Primary line all one point top to bottom

Secondary and third line
First Tier only 1 pt,
Second and successive tiers 2 pt

Yes, many alternatives to the out-of-spec costs were proposed. I think I might have suggested at one point that Tiers 1-2 could be "exempt" from the out-of-spec costs or something like that.

Honestly, I don't think I've seen any suggestions, concerns, or objections since the NDA drop that weren't brought up at some point during the beta process.

[Dworin]

I think that I'll be able to adapt ok to the changes, but I am really unhappy about one thing with the introduction of the trait trees. I crafted a First Age 1h sword for my Guardian and spent a lot of TP making it as I wanted, to use to get to 95 and a new sword. But now I find that sword is going to be gimped pretty hard. I have major legacies and 3 minor legacies on it, all at rank 9, but on Nov 18, if I choose one of the tanking builds, (blue or yellow), 2 of my major legacies will be useless to me and one of the minor's, because they are split off into the red tree. I think it is safe to say that will discourage me from spending any more TP on any future weapons.

*edit* 4 major, not 5

[Gedachtnis]

Now, for an attempt to ask a real question:

Was this ever proposed in Beta? To change the skill trees to be something like this:

Primary line all one point top to bottom

Secondary and third line
First Tier only 1 pt,
Second and successive tiers 2 pt

As has been mentioned, true hybrid classes like LM and Captain will definitely need access to more than just one line. Could this achieve the effect we need in those classes?

Yes there was a thread along those lines that was kept open and encouraged to continue. Nothing has come of it, but perhaps it has ideas they will use in following patches and tweaks. There are a few cool ideas in that thread, including a way to purchase out of Specialization Set bonuses and more.

[Sthrax]

Now, for an attempt to ask a real question:

Was this ever proposed in Beta? To change the skill trees to be something like this:

Primary line all one point top to bottom

Secondary and third line
First Tier only 1 pt,
Second and successive tiers 2 pt

As has been mentioned, true hybrid classes like LM and Captain will definitely need access to more than just one line. Could this achieve the effect we need in those classes?

We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the skill trait system was going live as it was. They had no intention of changing anything about the general setup of the trees. They took and responded to feedback about the specifics of individual trees only.

[cdq1958]

According to the log in graphs readily available no beta phase ever reached 50000 logins for a whole week only about 40k to be more accurate, now if every one of those 40k logins were individual people and each person logged in just once a day that make 5714 beta players, but if you expand that and say that its more likely that people would log on more than once a day lets say twice, that now leaves 2857 players, 300 out of 2857 = 10.5% and 10.5% is a pretty damn good sample size.

http://lux-hdro.de/images/live/weekly-logins-us.png

The problem isn't so much with the sample size, but its composition and generalizability. The more random the sample (vs self-selected) the better your chances are that you can make sound statistical inferences (avoid Type 1 and Type 2 errors as well as avoiding confirmation bias).

[Runesi_EU]

... than the zillions of ppl who are moaning now on forums....

Zillions? I'm not saying everyone is happy, that clearly is not the case, but actually if you go back through the 28 pages of this thread it's the same names popping up over and over, it's not 'zillions'. I agree, it's certainly controversial but exaggeration doesn't help anyones cause.

[Gedachtnis]

We were told, in no uncertain terms, that the skill trait system was going live as it was. They had no intention of changing anything about the general setup of the trees. They took and responded to feedback about the specifics of individual trees only.

Actually in one of the "The Trees Must Go" Threads that got locked people were directed by Sapience to the thread I mentioned, where we absolutely discussed revisions to how traits were costed and more. It remains unlocked.

They definitely were not interested in feedback about how the Trees needed to be scraped or a complete mechanic overhaul, and were quite clear that 2 points off spec is going live, but they also allowed discussion on fine-tuning the system for a later patch.

[Beaniemooch]

While I have a minstrel at cap, I haven't really played it much, and I haven't participated in beta either. That said, even I am aware that there's only so much fun in spamming heals (addressing which, as you might be aware, had been one of the primary design goals of earlier minstrel revamps, so they would get away from spamming bolster courage).

I would wager a guess that this would a prime reason people appear a bit irritated that those tales, buffs, damage skills et cetera, as you even acknowledge, are buried within other trees, reducing the blue minstrel to spamming heals.

SNy

I have 3 minstrels at cap and I do participate in this beta. When in current raids on live I used to use all my skills including Call to Greatness, Song of Aid (things buried in yellow line now), Rally (only available blue line now), all the little niceties that I don't necessarily have. I could increase my group's dps (Anthem), increase the tactical mitigations of my group (Anthem), give myself a power return (Anthem)...and on and on. These were contributions I could make so we weren't always dependent on me standing there just hitting BC, BC, BC, BC...and it made it possible to take down T2 and T2c content. On the other hand now Bolster procs a group-wide heal of 3k and better, Chord is a big initial heal plus tics, and Triumphant Spirit has a 5-10k+ group heal with a 45 second cooldown in blue line with an LI legacy. Those are now the only 3 skills I need to heal any group content. Period. *yawn* Pardon me if I don't see this as an improvement, just a boring dumbing down of a class I happen to love more than any other.

Yellow line can't rez anybody in combat because it's buried on T6 of blue line. Who is going to take a healer into a group that can't rez if something goes wrong? Are we required to take captains with us now if we want to trait yellow?

I don't want to find content challenging because I'm limited to 3 buttons. I want to find content challenging because it was well designed.

[frickinmuck]

I have 3 minstrels at cap and I do participate in this beta. When in current raids on live I used to use all my skills including Call to Greatness, Song of Aid (things buried in yellow line now), Rally (only available blue line now), all the little niceties that I don't necessarily have. I could increase my group's dps (Anthem), increase the tactical mitigations of my group (Anthem), give myself a power return (Anthem)...and on and on. These were contributions I could make so we weren't always dependent on me standing there just hitting BC, BC, BC, BC...and it made it possible to take down T2 and T2c content. On the other hand now Bolster procs a group-wide heal of 3k and better, Chord is a big initial heal plus tics, and Triumphant Spirit has a 5-10k+ group heal with a 45 second cooldown in blue line with an LI legacy. Those are now the only 3 skills I need to heal any group content. Period. *yawn* Pardon me if I don't see this as an improvement, just a boring dumbing down of a class I happen to love more than any other.

Yellow line can't rez anybody in combat because it's buried on T6 of blue line. Who is going to take a healer into a group that can't rez if something goes wrong? Are we required to take captains with us now if we want to trait yellow?

I don't want to find content challenging because I'm limited to 3 buttons. I want to find content challenging because it was well designed.

Yeah, it really sounds like the mini didn't get the dev attention and love some of the other classes did in this beta. I really hope this gets addressed in the time remaining, or in future updates.

[zagreb000]

........than the zillions of ppl who are moaning now on forums, including me, about making us bots and destroying our versatility and fun of play? And Turbine as nice and listening team immediately took all the efforts to quickly make the changes?

Good thing it isnt gazillions... Then i would be sincerely concerned....

Versatility has been destroying the game so far... I was thrilled when they announced the changes... Kill the versatility pls! Kill it with fire!

[Feleg]

I think maybe it did come up in the Twitter Dev Chats as something being considered? Regardless, no such thing was present on Bullroarer.



Nobody knows why he was banned other than the person who did it. If he did get banned merely for having an opinion, it would be the first time I've heard of such a thing.

OTOH, he was active on the Site-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Said Unnameable Site was involved in a breach of Beta NDA, and many players have received bans as a result. I don't know if he actually participated in the breach of NDA, or indeed if that's the actual reason for his ban, but it's a much more plausible explanation than anything else.

But while we're on the subject of bans, it might be a good time to remind people of point 13 from the Community Guidelines. >.>

Just to clarify - this guy got banned because he was active on another Site? This seems a poor excuse. Not sure what OTOH means.

[Cithryth]

I thought maybe some would appreciate being able to see a 'side by side' comparison (as it were) of live gameplay vs the same gameplay in beta. First I copied my lvl 26 LM over to the beta server. Then I recorded playing Trouble in Tuckborough first on Windfola and then doing the same in beta:

Beta vs Live - Solo LM Skirmish

I figured some would be interested in seeing how the changes effect low level characters and the kinds of gameplay changes they can expect to see. Before recording I had not looked at the LM changes at all and so this was kind of a "what will it be like on Nov 18" kind of thing.

Of course the usual disclaimer: anything and everything in the beta footage is subject to change between now and Nov 18.

[Beaniemooch]

Just to clarify - this guy got banned because he was active on another Site? This seems a poor excuse. Not sure what OTOH means.

OTOH - On the other hand.

And whatever site this was (I have no idea) I hear they posted entire copies of some of our beta threads.

[Gedachtnis]

Good thing it isnt gazillions... Then i would be sincerely concerned....

Versatility has been destroying the game so far... I was thrilled when they announced the changes... Kill the versatility pls! Kill it with fire!

Sorry I'm traited Lightning, no Fire till we're outta combat and I can switch specs....

[Aidus]

Zillions? I'm not saying everyone is happy, that clearly is not the case, but actually if you go back through the 28 pages of this thread it's the same names popping up over and over, it's not 'zillions'. I agree, it's certainly controversial but exaggeration doesn't help anyones cause.

This has remained constant from the most passionate player base on both sides. The volume of posts does not necessarily equal the same volume of players.

[BangoTwinkletoes]

OTOH, he was active on the Site-Which-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Said Unnameable Site was involved in a breach of Beta NDA, and many players have received bans as a result. I don't know if he actually participated in the breach of NDA, or indeed if that's the actual reason for his ban, but it's a much more plausible explanation than anything else.

But while we're on the subject of bans, it might be a good time to remind people of point 13 from the Community Guidelines. >.>

There's quite a few of us involved in beta who did not flout the NDA and who also post on the above-mentioned forum. So you'll find that the reason you're giving above is not factual. The last time I checked it's not against any rules that that one cannot post on this forum as well as post on 3rd party web sites. Otherwise what would happen to kin, raid alliance and other specialist forums?

In any event, giving ones opinions on the reason for a person's ban from this forum with the basis of that being pure conjecture is rather distasteful. Not sure what it adds to this discussion apart from trying to smear the character of the person involved. Only you know that.

Anyhow, that's all I am going to post now on this forum until the 18th and instead I will be squeezing the last drop of fun from all my characters before the changes hit us. If I buy HD it will be after go live and because I've got the TPs already accumulated so it won't cost me a penny.

Cheers all.

[Lohi]

On the current build, we can do as much as 1/3 our DPS with hitting things with our sword and staff in melee.

Yup, quite a lot of people don't realize it. Even some loremasters don't realize it. They get lumped in with other tactical classes (or worse someone calls them "casters"). It probably should have become a passive in the new system, except that could be considered broken since it would be restricted to just one of three trees.

But ya, we won't ever see the pre-Moria freedom all classes used to have. It's been a long journey of being squeezed into pre-approved builds and roles. If I managed to swallow trait set bonuses I suppose I can force down trait trees as well.

[Sthrax]

Actually in one of the "The Trees Must Go" Threads that got locked people were directed by Sapience to the thread I mentioned, where we absolutely discussed revisions to how traits were costed and more. It remains unlocked.

They definitely were not interested in feedback about how the Trees needed to be scraped or a complete mechanic overhaul, and were quite clear that 2 points off spec is going live, but they also allowed discussion on fine-tuning the system for a later patch.

The players did have some very good discussions regarding this, you are absolutely correct. Any dev interaction in those discussions I believe was from a purely theoretical standpoint- they never had any intention of altering the "skill system" that was in place, as Sapience made abundantly clear. And I have zero faith that the 2 point penalty for off-spec will go away anytime soon. They'll only relent if their revenues take a steep nosedive.

[Lohi]

Because everyone will have to pay to play HD.

Or use turbine points. You don't have to pay for those. Yes the price is high to grind it out but it's a small amount for VIPs (9 months of subbing earns the TP you need, and VIPs have no need to use TP anywhere else but to get an expansion).

[Jutland]

Epic Battles= Skirmishes 3.0;

All involve daily locks on each quest (the side quests you get inside are random). Random jewelery rewards. No way to earn specific Epic Battles rewards.
While on cooldown all you can get are marks and medallions. You cannot get XP.

So you cant get exp from Big Battles? Thats a good thing i guess, people were getting worried that low lvls could just lvl off this system.

While the Big Battles Provide exp, you need the quest to gain it. You do not gain exp for killing monsters...

Also, the exp gain is comparative to your Level. A lvl 15 character would get xp relative to his level and much less than a lvl 85. The jewelry rewards are also level scalable.