Official Discussion: Helm's Deep NDA Drop.

[Skippa]

Ah, the old "you must be a casual player if you like these changes" argument. Hadn't seen that one in awhile.

that actually wasn't what I said, try again

[Dworin]

No, I do not admit or agree with that statement. I find that statement to be absurd in this context, as I have repeatedly stated.

Crawfishing, like I said. But you're right, time to move on. There is no credibility left in your argument. To you, *Different = the same* is a true statement. Boggles the mind. Seriously. It is a waste of time to try to discuss something with someone who makes two contradictory statements and claims they are both true.

[Lohi]

If I decide to stop playing Skyrim I have a.... coffee coaster.

Except that you can play it again later if you change your mind, without paying more. Although skyrim is a bad example since it's steam based and your game might vanish in the future. But just this year I have played games that were 15 years old, without having to seek permission or pay more fees, though I did have to hunt down some patches and peruse new mods.

[Lohi]

I remember reading quite a while ago that we not only had to "make difficult choices", but that there would also be beneficial to make that choice early. What happened with that?

Well besides the answers already given, pragmatically realize that this statement was originally made some time in the past before the details had been worked out within Turbine. Ie, it was a marketing statement, possibly something a dev said in an email or in a meeting was filtered through someones buzzword filter, polished with some PR, and presented to the public. Meanwhile the mechanics of everything were undergoing daily change.

[Darlgon]

To me, that statement implies the skill changes are the same as if you were to login to the game and find your character has been deleted. But in fact, that's not the case at all. You will login on the 18th and find that your character is still there. All the progression, deeds, mounts, titles, xp, gear, cosmetics, etc. are still there. The skills and traits will have been changed, and you will need to respec and rearrange your skillbars, but your character will still be there. And it will play similar to how it does right now on live. In some ways more potent, in some ways narrowed. So, Turbine isn't taking away anyone's character. An alteration is not a removal.

Actually, last night, I told the members of my kin that still log in to have a memorial service for their characters next Sunday, as when they log into the game with Helm's Deep, they will have the same names, the same gear, but they will not BE the same characters. They will not know how to play them after four years, they will not work the same. Its kinda like a person who gets a massive head injury. Yeah, maybe they will seem the same sometimes, but if you know the person really well, you can also see that he is not the same person and never will be.

These characters ARE us, in some respect, and outgrowth of our personality. To make them SIMILAR to what they are now, would be like looking in a mirror and not recognizing who we are. Scary.

Since your opinion is otherwise, I hope you are right, but I really dont see it as simple as you seem to view the situation. Even the pride a person took in assembling the pages of their Moria books are now wasted, as you only need a certain number of points to get deep enough to get those tier traits now. All that work equals a trait point, not a skill that gets powered up to legendary status. I guess we shall see.

[Lohi]

*You cannot have the character you have on live now*

But this happens with many expansions and updates, and it happens across many MMOs. The only difference here is that it is a larger than usual change happening at once. Ie in the past they drastically messed with the Warden and Minstrel, and Warden had some troubles before it stabilized as well. The level 50 Minstrel of today has very little resemblance to the level 50 Minstrel of 6 years ago. Same for all classes really, we just don't see it as much because we've had incremental changes for the most part.

The problem with the expansion now is not so much that the characters are changing, but it's about how they are changing.

[dietlbomb]

Its kinda like a person who gets a massive head injury. Yeah, maybe they will seem the same sometimes, but if you know the person really well, you can also see that he is not the same person and never will be.

Trait revamp as head trauma. An apt analogy. Sometimes when I look at the trait trees, I feel like I'm losing sensation in my face and limbs. It takes 3 beers or 2 cocktails to get my brain to accept what's happening. And all those bears. Why are there always so many bears?

[Darlgon]

Trait revamp as head trauma. An apt analogy. Sometimes when I look at the trait trees, I feel like I'm losing sensation in my face and limbs. It takes 3 beers or 2 cocktails to get my brain to accept what's happening. And all those bears. Why are there always so many bears?

Are you in Chicago by any chance?

[Darlgon]

Ok.. nother silly question from the peanut gallery. When the warden got revamped by Orion, I have noted that it was update 6. Any idea what update this is? If I read right, this will be update 12.0? Based on this being 11.5:

https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...Notes-Official

IN the old forums, I knew where to find it. Now.. sigh. it almost feels like its on another website. But, I only look for this kinda stuff once in while.

[Dworin]

But this happens with many expansions and updates, and it happens across many MMOs. The only difference here is that it is a larger than usual change happening at once. Ie in the past they drastically messed with the Warden and Minstrel, and Warden had some troubles before it stabilized as well. The level 50 Minstrel of today has very little resemblance to the level 50 Minstrel of 6 years ago. Same for all classes really, we just don't see it as much because we've had incremental changes for the most part.

The problem with the expansion now is not so much that the characters are changing, but it's about how they are changing.

They still won't be the same characters. If they were, they would have the same abilities but with more to learn via the expansion. It is undeniable that by ripping out our present skills, re-arranging, consolidating, shuffling, removing, etc, that Turbine is taking our characters and replacing them with a different character with the same name and look. If they were the same characters, we wouldn't have to learn how to play them. We'd already know, because we know our characters. But the characters are new and we have to learn how to play them, starting over. To deny that as some have, is disingenuous at best.

[spelunker]

On a completely different note from most of this thread, Guild reputation crests/scrolls/carvings/etc have had their value reduced by around 40%, so if you aren't already max rep with a guild, use your cooldowns BEFORE HD goes live, and you will need about 150k of total rep based on current values in your vault to get to the new cap on release day. The new rep cap is 90k, but with the 40% reduction to values, you need 150k to get that, give or take a little. Enjoy the grind, and sorry for the late notice.

[Stephen1981]

On a completely different note from most of this thread, Guild reputation crests/scrolls/carvings/etc have had their value reduced by around 40%, so if you aren't already max rep with a guild, use your cooldowns BEFORE HD goes live, and you will need about 150k of total rep based on current values in your vault to get to the new cap on release day. The new rep cap is 90k, but with the 40% reduction to values, you need 150k to get that, give or take a little. Enjoy the grind, and sorry for the late notice.

this really is not a big deal i don't see the issue i have 8 characters and even with the new values yes i did the math with the rep values i will maxed guild rep on all my characters when HD goes live still

[Beaniemooch]

this really is not a big deal i don't see the issue i have 8 characters and even with the new values yes i did the math with the rep values i will maxed guild rep on all my characters when HD goes live still

Yes, but a lot of people won't, including me. And many wouldn't have known of the huge reduction in the value of their existing patterns they have stored.

Thanks spelunker for the reminder I need to go make more patterns if I want to level up my guild rep.

[spelunker]

this really is not a big deal i don't see the issue i have 8 characters and even with the new values yes i did the math with the rep values i will maxed guild rep on all my characters when HD goes live still

This issue is that it will now be that much harder for people to get a start with crafting guilds. If they wanted to make it harder to reach the new max rep on launch day, up the value on max tier. The implementation they have chosen means it will take new crafters several weeks longer to get to the point where they can start to work on the final tier of rep, particularly if they do it in the intended way of leveling up crafting in unison with your regular level gains.

[Tilps]

So, more than 1000 posts here, pretty safe no one will read this

But I felt that I wanted to share my feelings from beta. I'll preface this by stating I have pre-ordered. Unlike previous years I put it off for a while, but in the end I decided that completing the new solo content will provide sufficient value (for me).

I joined beta pretty early, but I have little time to spare for LOTRO, so I only had a very brief login before I had a hard drive failure which wiped out my Bullroarer install. But by that point reading the forums had produced sufficient negativity that I couldn't be bothered to reinstall.
In that brief login I was disheartened to discover that not only was the skill/trait trees quite an invasive change, but that in my opinion there were serious gaps in the design. Now sure, I've main tanked almost everything in the game, and have even been involved in a world first dungeon clear, but leaving it impossible to have 2 range pull attacks in the primary tanking tree seems to me to be a pretty obvious hole given how many instances have required multiple individual pulls by the tank to start. I am no Guardian prodigy, those are the other tanks who manage to pull off server firsts in-spite of me being in the group. I was left wondering how it was that things were in this state that even I was seeing what seemed to be gaping holes.
But on the positive side, most of the concerns I raised were resolved. I don't know if the same can be said for all classes, but on paper at least Guardians have improved over the beta process. Not that I am happy that anything was changed at all, but at least it is less of a shock to the system now.

I have confidence that completing solo levelling content will still be within my grasp despite the changes breaking a lot of what I am used to. I mean tanking guardians already don't take any significant damage in a lot of basic solo content and I've heard that hasn't really changed. Hence I'll be around with my wife (assuming she still wants to play after the Mini changes), levelling up as time allows, and then probably disappearing until next year.

As I mentioned above, I've been doing end-game content for a while. Maybe I've had no right to, but for several years I've managed to skate by with a ~50-100 hour investment once a year, and ~5 hours a week the rest of the time (and much thanks to my friends who sometimes put in many more hours to cover for my lack of time). That is all the time I can really spare (and with a child on the way it is only going to get harder to spare any time). This last year however, this has changed. Dropping raid locks and putting more high end items behind 1% or lower RNG gates rather than behind difficulty gates has had a serious negative impact on my enjoyment and ability to stay competitive with my limited time availability. This is where the real negative for me has come from. This expansion's main changes are in a completely different dimension than what I would have been interested in. Epic battles are still at an early stage, and maybe they will have less horrible RNG, but early reports I have been reading in the forums have not been promising. I also don't look forward to the increase in the amount of LI legacy switching I'll have to do to make an LI which matches with my specialization.

Well anyway, there is always the story... hopefully it is worth the pre-order cost, as I guessed it would be

[Andthelion]

So, more than 1000 posts here, pretty safe no one will read this

But I felt that I wanted to share my feelings from beta. I'll preface this by stating I have pre-ordered. Unlike previous years I put it off for a while, but in the end I decided that completing the new solo content will provide sufficient value (for me).

I joined beta pretty early, but I have little time to spare for LOTRO, so I only had a very brief login before I had a hard drive failure which wiped out my Bullroarer install. But by that point reading the forums had produced sufficient negativity that I couldn't be bothered to reinstall.
In that brief login I was disheartened to discover that not only was the skill/trait trees quite an invasive change, but that in my opinion there were serious gaps in the design. Now sure, I've main tanked almost everything in the game, and have even been involved in a world first dungeon clear, but leaving it impossible to have 2 range pull attacks in the primary tanking tree seems to me to be a pretty obvious hole given how many instances have required multiple individual pulls by the tank to start. I am no Guardian prodigy, those are the other tanks who manage to pull off server firsts in-spite of me being in the group. I was left wondering how it was that things were in this state that even I was seeing what seemed to be gaping holes.
But on the positive side, most of the concerns I raised were resolved. I don't know if the same can be said for all classes, but on paper at least Guardians have improved over the beta process. Not that I am happy that anything was changed at all, but at least it is less of a shock to the system now.

I have confidence that completing solo levelling content will still be within my grasp despite the changes breaking a lot of what I am used to. I mean tanking guardians already don't take any significant damage in a lot of basic solo content and I've heard that hasn't really changed. Hence I'll be around with my wife (assuming she still wants to play after the Mini changes), levelling up as time allows, and then probably disappearing until next year.

As I mentioned above, I've been doing end-game content for a while. Maybe I've had no right to, but for several years I've managed to skate by with a ~50-100 hour investment once a year, and ~5 hours a week the rest of the time (and much thanks to my friends who sometimes put in many more hours to cover for my lack of time). That is all the time I can really spare (and with a child on the way it is only going to get harder to spare any time). This last year however, this has changed. Dropping raid locks and putting more high end items behind 1% or lower RNG gates rather than behind difficulty gates has had a serious negative impact on my enjoyment and ability to stay competitive with my limited time availability. This is where the real negative for me has come from. This expansion's main changes are in a completely different dimension than what I would have been interested in. Epic battles are still at an early stage, and maybe they will have less horrible RNG, but early reports I have been reading in the forums have not been promising. I also don't look forward to the increase in the amount of LI legacy switching I'll have to do to make an LI which matches with my specialization.

Well anyway, there is always the story... hopefully it is worth the pre-order cost, as I guessed it would be

The story and the landscape are as always impeccable, so if thats why you parted with your cash, then (in my opinion) your money will be well spent and I have no doubt you will get much enjoyment from the expansion.

As for your other points, yes beta started off in a bad way and while things improved over its course I think they only scratched the surface and evaded the real issues that were there. meaning the class changes were only ever going to be acceptable at best and in the case of some classes, slightly better than horrific.

End Game group content is the biggest casualty of this expansion ( and to a lesser extent previous changes such as the awful RNG loot system, you have my full sympathy with that nonsense btw) so anyone who uses end game content as a marker to whether an expansion is worth the price or not, I strongly urge them to get a beta key from facebook or wait till the 18th to take a look for themselves before spending your money.

I hope you and your wife can find something from this expansion that you can enjoy, if you group together through the landscape and epic story then I think you will be fine ( Minnie has or is having its dps rebalanced before launch, so a guard/minnie combo will now have enough dps to not make questing together a long slog).

All the best,
Andthelion.

[Darlgon]

Well anyway, there is always the story... hopefully it is worth the pre-order cost, as I guessed it would be

Actually, you may be better off than most. Turbine has yet to fail to deliver a good story. Also, if you play as little as you say, you logged into little changes each year that you came back and had to relearn it. Your wife, well.. just that fact that players refer to the "Orion" minstrel or the SOA mini kinda tells you that that class has had some substantial changes, as much as my wardens. However, even those testers who survived those class changes previously are saying that the changes now alter the mini WAY beyond that comparison. Hope it works out well for you guys.

Thanks for your input. It matches what my feeling the mostly casual player will feel on logging in. You know, or like the 9 other kin members, who, when I asked Friday night before our raid if they had been reading the forums said, "What new threads in the forums?"

[BangoTwinkletoes]

On a completely different note from most of this thread, Guild reputation crests/scrolls/carvings/etc have had their value reduced by around 40%, so if you aren't already max rep with a guild, use your cooldowns BEFORE HD goes live, and you will need about 150k of total rep based on current values in your vault to get to the new cap on release day. The new rep cap is 90k, but with the 40% reduction to values, you need 150k to get that, give or take a little. Enjoy the grind, and sorry for the late notice.

Fine for those players on cap who have been stashing away westfold & eastemnet symbols ready for when HD drops, but I do pity those people starting out in this game who will now have a challenge getting sufficient rep so they can get access to the expert, artisan & master guild gear whilst it's still on level.

Can't see how that adds to the player experience, unless of course its all about leading players by the nose to the store.

[Stephen1981]

This issue is that it will now be that much harder for people to get a start with crafting guilds. If they wanted to make it harder to reach the new max rep on launch day, up the value on max tier. The implementation they have chosen means it will take new crafters several weeks longer to get to the point where they can start to work on the final tier of rep, particularly if they do it in the intended way of leveling up crafting in unison with your regular level gains.

oh please its still not a issue cause the materials are so easy to get they gotta make people log in somehow the game can't be easy at every turn

[Andthelion]

oh please its still not a issue cause the materials are so easy to get they gotta make people log in somehow the game can't be easy at every turn

Exactly, crafting has never been "hard", its always been easy its just a matter of time, it requires no skill to find mats, and with the huge amounts of gold swimming about towards the end of rohan its been easier than ever to aquire them, agreed it may be more time consuming to cap out your guilds straight after launch, but its just as easy really.

We dont even have to get off our horses anymore in Rohan to mine nodes, all you need to do is toggle on your tracker hit the right mouse button and the game does the rest, rinse and repeat for an hour and you can max the tier in an hour , especially after the changes with RoR that brought in processing. Which i believe are being expanded to the lower tiers with HD.

[clarabelle]

oh please its still not a issue cause the materials are so easy to get they gotta make people log in somehow the game can't be easy at every turn

Getting max rep is not about finding mats, its about waiting for reputation items to come of comedown. You cant classify that as "easy" or "hard". If they actually wanted to make crafting more challenging they would make basic mats harder to find or implement a system with rare crafting mats, challenging side-quest, daily craft quest etc.

This is a way for Turbine to increase the usage of the store and slow peoples progression down, not making crafting harder. Encouraging players to buy more rep-accelerators, is the goal. I'm not raging about it really, because Turbine has to make money from somewhere.

Still, there will be issues for new players, or new crafters. They will be forced to use the store to get maxed reputation, if they want to finish and get capped within reasonable time.

Hopefully we will still be able to barter rep boost from skirmish, but I'm really worried they will remove that option as well. Also that wont help new players, they don't swim in marks like I do.

But yeah, it wont effect me much. I planned ahead and stacked up on all my crafters.

[Stephen1981]

well i always make rep items ahead time way before they announced when the next xpac is comming out

[Jamesm429]

You can only swap traits/builds out of combat. You need to make sure you're in the correct build for the battle ahead of time. There will be no more champs stepping in to tank in the last few seconds of the fight if the tank goes down, no more captains saving the group with IHW/LS, no RK's switching over to heal if the minstrel goes down and so on depending on how each class is traited before they go into the battle so there is your choose early, before the combat starts. How you go into the fight is how it's going to go, period. Basically something like this:


Currently on live with my captain in a fellowship:

Group Leader: "Okay captain, we have three very large angry Uruks to get through before the boss fight.

I want you to put telling mark on the first Uruk, we'll burn him down about half-way then throw Oathbreakers on him to finish him off. Second Uruk I want revealing mark to help out the healer a bit to top us off. Loremaster is going to be busy debuffing and getting ready for adds, so throw songbrother on the healer to help with power. When the group is stabilized switch over to blade brother on the champ to help finish him off. If anyone goes down during this time pop a rez on them and make sure to get them buffed back up. If another goes down get another rez and buffs up, I want to save the minstrel rez for the third Uruk in case it gets the tank.

Third Uruk is going to be tricky, he gets to 1/4 health he's going to hit the tank like a freight train, I want shield brother on him to help heal him up and protect him. Also there will be adds coming, if any get by and head for the healer help the champ pull them off and dump them near the tank. Keep those off heals, to arms, Oathbreakers as soon as they are up, Last Stand/In Harms Way in the last twenty seconds as well as insurance and anything else you got and we should pull through this just fine."

Me: "Got it boss, not a problem."


New way as it stands currently on beta:

Group Leader: "Okay captain, we have three very large angry Uruks to get through before the boss fight.

I want you to put telling mark on the first Uruk, we'll burn him down about half-way then throw Oathbreakers on him to finish him off. Second Uruk I want revealing mark to help out the healer a bit to top us off. Loremaster is going to be busy debuffing and getting ready for adds, so throw songbrother on the healer to help with power. When the group is stabilized switch over to blade brother on the champ to help finish him off. If anyone goes down during this time pop a rez on them and make sure to get them buffed back up. If another goes down get another rez and buffs up, I want to save the minstrel rez for the third Uruk in case it gets the tank.

Third Uruk is going to be tricky, he gets to 1/4 health he's going to hit the tank like a freight train, I want shield brother on him to help heal him up and protect him. Also there will be adds coming, if any get by and head for the healer help the champ pull them off and dump them near the tank. Keep those off heals, to arms, Oathbreakers as soon as they are up, Last Stand/In Harms Way in the last twenty seconds as well as insurance and anything else you got and we should pull through this just fine."

Me: "Sorry can't do but about a third of that."

Group leader: "Seriously? *sigh*"

Yes I know that this is a hypothetical battle, but I'm just trying to illustrate how restrictive the trees actually are. The support classes that thrive on hybrid builds and having ALL of their skills at their disposal to be able to pull the group back from the brink of a wipe are gone with the wind. I'll miss my captain (my main) the most and my loremaster second most as those are the classes that will be the hardest hit with these changes (burglar too but I don't really play that class in a group much if at all) with the skills being gated and the out of spec point penalty. Hybrid builds are a possibility true, but they are mere shadow of what we are capable of on live right now. All skills not available all the time and so on.


Also something else to think about. We have currently lost about 35% of a thriving kinship (one of the oldest and well known on Arkenstone) over the past year/year and half. We used to do two runs during the week (mostly six man stuff), and Fri/Sat nights were the big twelve man runs a year ago. We now have to struggle to even get a three man going on a Fri/Sat night as the current member/officer base has dwindled so much. Last Friday night (one of our usually busiest nights we had a grand total of two officers and one member on) for example. We had fifteen officers just over a year ago, we are down to five now. The majority of our officers and members left because of RoR and said that they would not return (and they haven't), many of the remaining have stated that if Turbine does not get HD right they will leave as well.

Why did they leave? Many, many different reasons. They did not like the direction Turbine was taking the game, they did not like the fact that so much of the game that needed attention never have, never will get that attention, lack of end game content, the sheer amount of grinding (yes I know grinding is part of the MMO world, but 47 days of dailies to rebuild a town, then additional x amount of days to get armor for your main and alts? Twenty-seven days of dailies to get reputation with the SECOND half of the reputation system in a small add on to the game? Come on, I don't mind grinding to get what I want but wow.), and many, many other things that you can easily find on the forums nowadays and that never seem to get addressed.

Judging from the current changes and the direction that Turbine is going I fear that more will leave as well. Do I like the changes? No I don't, not in the least bit. Did I give them a chance? Yes, and provided feedback and was a good beta tester and did what I could. Can I get used to them? Sure I can, I've gotten used to many, many changes over the years, but nothing this drastic all at once. The frog in the water analogy that someone posted comes to mind here.

The community is to me what takes this game from good to great. I have so many fond memories (the first time in the Foundry when our resident RK went running ahead of the tank around a corner and discovering a pile of mobs waiting on him to which he promptly dragged back to the group shouting some colorful language is one of my favorites, oh the stories I could tell). When the community that I've played with for so many years has slowly trickled away (and more will go, I'm sure of this) then I lose one of the major reasons for staying with the game, sure I'm a LoTRO fanatic and I'm in this until Turbine pulls the plug, but this does not mean that I have to spend any more money on the game (lifetimer), nor play anywhere near the amount of time that I usually do. I'll level up my little "family", get them all ready for the next thing and go play/do other things until the next thing comes out in LoTRO, rinse and repeat until the lights are shut off. Dang I'm going to miss this so much.

Hey man, Kin Leader of Ramble On here, and I feel for you. We have lost over 75% of our kin. From raiding to 3 times a week, to raiding maybe once a week. But hey, everything is ok, you can still play this game solo.......................... ...

[Palentian]

Hey man, Kin Leader of Ramble On here, and I feel for you. We have lost over 75% of our kin. From raiding to 3 times a week, to raiding maybe once a week. But hey, everything is ok, you can still play this game solo.......................... ...

Interesting. Did you lose them in the past week?? I ask because you make it sound like they left because of the changes. I just like to clarify.

Yes I know that this is a hypothetical battle, but I'm just trying to illustrate how restrictive the trees actually are.

I'd suggest getting a second Cappy if you're having that much trouble with the raid. Or let the cappy see what else he can do in that situation.

[Andthelion]

Interesting. Did you lose them in the past week?? I ask because you make it sound like they left because of the changes. I just like to clarify.

Thats not how I read it at all.

I read that as because of recent changes to the game that have ruined group play, which are well documented since Rohan release, I am talking, RNG loot system, poor quality end game, FAs dropping in T1 instances at release, FAs being obtained from farming faceroll content like sambrog etc etc, the raid level gear dropping in faceroll content (GB, Annuminas ,Fornost etc), those are the reasons raiding kins have died away over the past year.

Now if you want a conversation as to whether HD and its Big Battles and the class changes are going to reverse that trend and breathe life into the raiding community then I am sure there will be many takers on that topic.

For what its worth my opinion is it will firmly seal the death of raiding kins once and for all, there is nothing in HD to inspire raiders to come back or stay any longer. And nor is there any promise of that changing anytime soon