Update 17.1 Beta & Load test Release Notes - PRELIMINARY AND NON-FINAL - BULLROARER ONLY

[Tybur]

Please join us this evening to preview an Update 17.1 build in our new datacenter.

The following release notes are for the Bullroarer public test server only and may not reflect the final list of changes or updates included at release.

These notes are not final and should be viewed as a work in progress and subject to change.

The Eyes and Guard Tavern is now open!

Important Note: Please be aware that the build you are seeing here is a work in progress and is by no means the finished Update 17 patch product. There are items that are not yet complete. There may also be items missing from this initial list, this is not intentional and will be added as we progress.

Test out some amazing new offers in the store:
*Blessing of the Valar – Level your character to 95, catch up to your friends, and jump into the Epic Quests to help defend Gondor!
*Blessing of the Valar Upgrade – Already over level 51? Level your character to 95 with this option.
*Housing Decorations: Crafting stations – Hook a workspace for your character, right in your home! Take care of your crafting while surrounded by your memories of adventure in Middle-earth.

• Our art team has resolved several bugs with weapon effects appearing in an incorrect location or in a manner that conflicts with the cosmetically equipped weapon. However, in order for this fix to fully take effect you MUST UNEQUIP and RE-EQUIP all of your weapons. Until you do so, you will see effects that look like a ghost weapon
• Lifetime subscribers should now correctly not see offers in the store which are not relevant to them.
• Quests and Regions: A crafting guild hall has been added to Minas Tirth.
• Now the door you use to enter the Cisterns for The Secret Passage is locked both inside and out, until you unlock it. No more stumbling out of the Cisterns and being unable to get back in!
• In the first two Children of Minas Tirith quests, Bergil, Gelwen, and Glatham can no longer take harm, and thus not be defeated in combat. This circumvents an issue where resummoning them in the Secret Passage could result in a wrong assortment of Bergils, Gelwens, and Glathams.
• A certain W.W. will now properly move on from the entrance to Rivendell, instead of staying there forever.
• Fixed an issue where certain (primarily slayer-type) quests were missing Quest Guide information.
• Identified a possible crash that could occur when returning to Character Select or exiting the game.
• Examination tooltips for barring skills should no longer contain duplicate entries and correctly pluralize the word "skill".
• Various Festival announcement quests have had their repeat timers changed and increased. Mostly notably, Hobnanigans is Here will now only bestow on a character once per week while the event is active.
• The Essence of Nature's Roar now procs properly.
• The Beorning skill Call to Wild properly decreases the cost of Composure and Hearten.
• Store Tracking Tomes and Talismans no longer break stealth.
• A number of level 45 class quest items have been made non-unique.
• Some of the Bingo Boffin armour rewards have had their armour values rebalanced.
• The Champion Weapon Master buff stays after being defeated.
• Epic Battles - Helm's Dike - Powder at the Gates (Solo) - Waves of attackers should now always advance toward the gates.
• Epic - A Relic in Lumul-nar (Solo) - The final puzzle is no longer required to finish this space in the abridged solo version. Destroying Gorothul's artifact will now open the path to Ergoth to complete this chapter of the Epic.
• Epic Battles - Deeping Coomb - Searching the Debris - The quest should now be completable and it should be possible to receive Platinum.
• Epic Battles - Glittering Caves (3-Player) - Civilian Defence - Quest should now complete properly and award Marks and Medallions at the proper time.
• Epic Battles - Defence of Minas Tirith/Hammer of the Underworld - Siege-towers now have a minimap icon to alert you to where they are currently assaulting the wall.
• Instances - Dome of Stars - The final respawn point is now on the bridge leading into the Dome. Respawns should no longer aggro you immediately when you spawn there.
• Instances - Osgiliath - New Bounty Quests Added! Completing Sunken Labyrinth or Ruined City on Tier 2 at Level 100 will now award 1 Morgul Crest upon defeat of the final boss. Completing the Dome of Stars on Tier 2 at Level 100 will now award 2 Morgul Crests upon defeat of the final boss.
• Library at Tham Mirdain - challenge chest now spawns in after defeating Boss but only if you don't defeat any crows until after you defeat the boss.
• Minas Tirith - A few NPCs had varying appearances between the Epic, Minas Tirith proper, and the Epic Battles. They're all feeling back to normal now!
• Some players were unable to get the "Bard" title (available from the play during Yule-fest). They should be able to get the title now.
• Bound-to-account housing decoration items can now exist and be slotted in housing decoration slots without getting bound to character. Their tooltips will show the name of the player who placed the item as "Bound to <player>'s account".
• Housing items that were bound to character are now bound to account. In addition, when an account-bound housing item is placed, it will say in the tooltip which character placed the item. For previously placed bound to character items, the owning character removing the item from the hook and placing it again will make the name of the character appear and will bind the item to the account.
• Items bound to characters will now try to show the name of the character bound to. This is mostly useful for housing decorations - if the decoration was bound to a player who is on your account, friends list, or kinship, you will see the player's name when examining the slotted housing decoration, so that you know who it would be returned to. Note that bound-to-character housing decorations don't become bound-to-account until they hit the inventory of whoever slotted them.
• Housing decorations should no longer make noise while in your inventory.
• Fixed a problem that would cause map home skills to sometimes fail to work (but go on cooldown) from a housing neighborhood.
• Barter vendors that give you items for mithril now have a button to go to the store to get more mithril if you don't have enough to barter for the item.
• Crafted Tier 10 consumables used to show incorrect stats in their tooltip when shortcut on the quickslot bar. Newly-made shortcuts will now have correct stats. You'll have to remake old shortcuts to fix them.
• In the Merry Swan in Minas Tirith, Lord Forlong's hair is now colored a proper raven black.
• A Letter Belated: Lintanar has learned to keep his footing and should no longer fall through the floor.

Polish to Forlong's Feast quests:
- the flowers at the base of the statue are now all taken
- the hat is now resting somewhere sensible & interesting and not just on the ground
- added extra mithril travel for the objective to remember Authlin's song
- switched the color text for the councilor & the magistrate and posed them better
[English] Many misspellings and inconsistencies have been corrected. A few of the more obvious changes:
* Vests are now Waistcoats
* Jewelry is now Jewellery
* Armor is more consistently Armour

PvMP changes:

• Creep morale pools have been increased.
• Creep healing magnitude has been increased.
• The length of the stun on the Warleader skill Shield Bash has been increased to 10 seconds.
  The damage on the following Creep skills have been increased:

Reaver -

• Sudden Strikes
• Jagged Cut
• Lacerate

Weaver -

• Piercing Attack
• Tainted Kiss
• Lethal Kiss

Blackarrow -

• Screaming Shafts
• Flaming Arrow
• Death Blossom

Warleader -

• Intimidating Shout
• Black Speech
• Menacing Roar

Warg -

• Bestial Claws
• Sudden Maul
• Swipe

Defiler -

• Fire Gourd
• Headbreaker
• Plague Gourd

[Laire]

• Quests and Regions: A crafting guild hall has been added to Minas Tirth.
• Various Festival announcement quests have had their repeat timers changed and increased. Mostly notably, Hobnanigans is Here will now only bestow on a character once per week while the event is active.
• Housing items that were bound to character are now bound to account. In addition, when an account-bound housing item is placed, it will say in the tooltip which character placed the item. For previously placed bound to character items, the owning character removing the item from the hook and placing it again will make the name of the character appear and will bind the item to the account.
• Items bound to characters will now try to show the name of the character bound to. This is mostly useful for housing decorations - if the decoration was bound to a player who is on your account, friends list, or kinship, you will see the player's name when examining the slotted housing decoration, so that you know who it would be returned to. Note that bound-to-character housing decorations don't become bound-to-account until they hit the inventory of whoever slotted them.

These are super exciting for reasons I cannot fully articulate.

No sarcasm. Just wonderful annoyances disappearing.

[pittcrew1]

These are super exciting for reasons I cannot fully articulate.


No sarcasm. Just wonderful annoyances disappearing.

I agree. Also love the crafting workspaces finally being added. The store items I don't have a problem with, just curious about prices. Looking forward to checking it out.

[MusterTheRohirrim]

Way to screw over solo play EVEN MORE by buffing healing and morale pools even more instead of nerfing freep healing. What is wrong with you people?

[grenifk]

PvMP changes:

• Creep morale pools have been increased.
• Creep healing magnitude has been increased.
• The length of the stun on the Warleader skill Shield Bash has been increased to 10 seconds.
  The damage on the following Creep skills have been increased:

Reaver -

• Sudden Strikes
• Jagged Cut
• Lacerate

Weaver -

• Piercing Attack
• Tainted Kiss
• Lethal Kiss

Blackarrow -

• Screaming Shafts
• Flaming Arrow
• Death Blossom

Warleader -

• Intimidating Shout
• Black Speech
• Menacing Roar

Warg -

• Bestial Claws
• Sudden Maul
• Swipe

Defiler -

• Fire Gourd
• Headbreaker
• Plague Gourd

I appreciate that you actually listened to great ideas that have been suggested from several players:
-not increasing creep's HP
-decreased freep healing in PvMP zones
-nerfed beorns

Thanks a lot

I trully hope your HW is a lot better than the previous one, since RvR will last forever now ..sigh

[Thurd]

Why would you increase morale pool and healing magnitude? Is the plan for fights to last forever now or just till the servers crash due to overload/lag.

[MessyR]

Really sad to see the store bought level boosts, its just killing the older content of the game even more than it is already. Will be interesting to see the price of the boosts.

Creeps needed the damage boost, but why not just nerf freep heals and damage a bit.

[Thurd]

Are you people stupid? The creeps have 150-260k morale on Beta atm, this better be a god damn bug or you are going to lose 50% of the freep population.

[Elwha]

PvMP changes:

• Creep morale pools have been increased.
• Creep healing magnitude has been increased.

Exactly what Creeps didn't need! STOP implementing changes that ret@rd RvR fight duration.

[Warmutkan]

A lot of quality of life fixes in here that are much appreciated. Thanks.

[MonkeyMe]

Way to screw over solo play EVEN MORE by buffing healing and morale pools even more instead of nerfing freep healing. What is wrong with you people?

Turbine has said multiple times LOTRO PvP is not meant to be 'solo'. However, I do agree on not needing the morale pools increased.

One thing I wanted to add to what you said, The freep healing isn't the only issue right now. There are freep classes (Fire RK, LM, etc) that need a dps adjustment if they weren't going to buff creep healing / morale pools. The fact that a fire rk can hit a r14 full aud creep with one pulse of smouldering wrath for 24k (one pulse, and there's like what? 4? 5 pulses? if even 4 of those crit like that, rip whatever creep it was used on, regardless of class) lets just say that's overdone. Not to mention lm's lightning storm annihilating any wargs within range. And can we talk about beornings? Like...that class is so troll lol.


Something was definitely needed in the moors, but whether this was the way to go...probably not. Nerf freep heals, adjust some of their dps output on certain skills, leave creeps the way they are imo.

Edit: OR, and I know the majority of ppl who freep would hate me saying this, but leave everything as it is right now except disable use of 5 slot essence gear in moors.



Also to the devs - (The damage on the following Creep skills have been increased) can I ask by how much the damage has been increased? Percentage-wise or w.e? Just curious.

[Starkorm]

Well then...

[Thoroval]

• Bound-to-account housing decoration items can now exist and be slotted in housing decoration slots without getting bound to character. Their tooltips will show the name of the player who placed the item as "Bound to <player>'s account".
• Housing items that were bound to character are now bound to account. In addition, when an account-bound housing item is placed, it will say in the tooltip which character placed the item. For previously placed bound to character items, the owning character removing the item from the hook and placing it again will make the name of the character appear and will bind the item to the account.
• Items bound to characters will now try to show the name of the character bound to. This is mostly useful for housing decorations - if the decoration was bound to a player who is on your account, friends list, or kinship, you will see the player's name when examining the slotted housing decoration, so that you know who it would be returned to. Note that bound-to-character housing decorations don't become bound-to-account until they hit the inventory of whoever slotted them.

Yes!!!!

[floccari]

I guess most of Creeps would rather have a Buff on Mitigations/Critical Defense instead of Morale. Nice job again.

[lugbur]

my initial impression is that the morale buff along with the rest may be too much. the healing increase, depending on how large it was, may end up being fine but the morale along with it may prove to be too big of a leap. the damage boost was the most important thing

[Stephen1981]

is their more plans for performance improvements or is that all minas Tirith will get

[Zanishi]

these morale pools make me lol


im glad after all these years % heals still rule!

[Beornbryt]

Increasing moral on creeps is okay, but 30% less would be still enough and better.

[jomanjy]

PvMP changes:
[*]Creep healing magnitude has been increased.

Thank you!

[MusterTheRohirrim]

And some classes, like Guardians, do no damage at all.

Turbine has said multiple times LOTRO PvP is not meant to be 'solo'. However, I do agree on not needing the morale pools increased.

One thing I wanted to add to what you said, The freep healing isn't the only issue right now. There are freep classes (Fire RK, LM, etc) that need a dps adjustment if they weren't going to buff creep healing / morale pools. The fact that a fire rk can hit a r14 full aud creep with one pulse of smouldering wrath for 24k (one pulse, and there's like what? 4? 5 pulses? if even 4 of those crit like that, rip whatever creep it was used on, regardless of class) lets just say that's overdone. Not to mention lm's lightning storm annihilating any wargs within range. And can we talk about beornings? Like...that class is so troll lol.


Something was definitely needed in the moors, but whether this was the way to go...probably not. Nerf freep heals, adjust some of their dps output on certain skills, leave creeps the way they are imo.

Edit: OR, and I know the majority of ppl who freep would hate me saying this, but leave everything as it is right now except disable use of 5 slot essence gear in moors.



Also to the devs - (The damage on the following Creep skills have been increased) can I ask by how much the damage has been increased? Percentage-wise or w.e? Just curious.

[peachykins]

There is no rotate option for the gondorian crafting study. I have tested out the forge, cooking, and farmland crafting stations & you can place those how you wish but cannot with the study.

[MonkeyMe]

And some classes, like Guardians, do no damage at all.

This is why I said adjust, not necessarily nerf in all classes case, although i'll admit I did forget about that as I am not to familiar with guardian and do not see many on the server i'm on (that's probably why tbh lol).

[Theozor]

Various Festival announcement quests have had their repeat timers changed and increased. Mostly notably, Hobnanigans is Here will now only bestow on a character once per week while the event is active.

FINALLY! I can finally login the first weekend of a month without all the hobspam.

[TheOldBlood]

[COLOR=#CCCCCC]*Blessing of the Valar – Level your character to 95, catch up to your friends, and jump into the Epic Quests to help defend Gondor!
*Blessing of the Valar Upgrade – Already over level 51? Level your character to 95 with this option.

ok a few questions:
When this goes live, will characters that already passed lvl 50 be upgraded to 95?
Will there be skips/boosts? Such as automatically gaining all of the HD questline class points?
How much will virtues be boosted?

[MusterTheRohirrim]

This is why I said adjust, not necessarily nerf in all classes case, although i'll admit I did forget about that as I am not to familiar with guardian and do not see many on the server i'm on (that's probably why tbh lol).

I wasn't arguing with you, just elaborating on how stupid this adjustment is.