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

[zolander]

#### with all this QQ about leaving the game or whatever, no one gives a F ... This is only BR, just give simple feedback like a normal human or just Shut up ..
Anyways turbine ... Nice changes, just remove the morale boost please .. And if you could just "Increase" our DPS overall and not by skills ... and how much was the dmg increase? 10? 50?

[Grahlwur]

Some spontaneous thoughts:

*Blessing of the Valar – Level your character to 95, catch up to your friends, and jump into the Epic Quests to help defend Gondor!

Not a big fan of this, but if it keeps the game going I won't argue.

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.

Pretty cool. Probably won't buy one myself as they cost TP. I like that it's bound to account and can be transferred as normal if you switch house or want to move it.

Housing items that were bound to character are now bound to account.

This is so awesome!! Really love this. Been bugging me forever that I have to use my mains vault space to store all my trophies and whatnot. This also makes decorating a bit easier. Thank you! Really makes me happy!
Personally I think more items should be bount to account rather than character. I see why you don't want my level 100 to send his quest reward to my level 4, but as long as there is a level requirement I don't think it makes much sense to bind most items to the character rather than account. Realistically, I'm hoping for this to be implemented for outfits in the future!

Epic Battles - Deeping Coomb - Searching the Debris - The quest should now be completable and it should be possible to receive Platinum.

Did this the other day and got Platinum. When I read this I was like "this must be some old note getting here by mistake, wasn't this bugged years ago, surely it works now". Then I did it again last night and failed the quest as it bugged out. So glad to see this fix afterall!

Overall I think this patch is as exciting as a minor patch can be. Great job, looking forward to it on live!

Regards

[Pavlosh]

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?

In my opinion Turbine did the right thing. Changes made for PvMP should not affect PvE.

Rather than nerf Freep healing they should buff Creep DPS.

[infinitewhimsy]

I looked back at it, and had some serious crit luck on fell restoration. Here is what is doable just mashing skills as they come off cd (besides fungal spores) and throwing some CP in there (Note i accidentally ranked up instead of getting comms and OPs were at 2-2)



Oops, this shows 13.3k but i moused over how this wasn't a 'lucky' parse.

Constant Pain is still totally terrible. Classic Turbine, leave useless skills, completely break the staples of the class. 30k non crit Fell Restorations? Wow.

The feedback isn't deserved but if it isn't clear...

You should not double Creep morale pools and heals. This will only increase the disparity in the Moors. There is a tremendous difference between a maxed out and well played Freep vs an average one. The average Freeps...the majority...will be completely in tears over this update. On live good Creeps can and do destroy average Freeps. That's not to say Creeps aren't underpowered, good Creeps stand zero chance against good Freeps on live...but what needs to be addressed are fundamental problems and lack of (or excess of in the case of Freeps) utility. PvMP should be made more inclusive, but all this does is exacerbate what's prohibitive about it.


Simply put more morale, more heal stacking...is not FUN. The solution here is to nerf Freep heals and to improve some Creep skills, the garbage ones (and many remain garbage/poorly scaled), and to add utility where it is lacking; for example, Defilers have no way to get off an emergency heal, they are very constrained by inductions unlike Minstrel which has both inductionless emergency heals (which are spammable b/c the class is broken) and a way to temporarily remove induction setback, your only hope of getting off that desperately needed Fell Restoration on Defiler is your fear, which is unreliable and counterable. That's what Creeps need, parallels to the functionality of key Freep skills, not this super generic heavy handed band aid that will break more than it fixes.

Also, lower the cost of Audacity on Creepside. It costs way too much (far more than Freep) and is just another barrier to participating and contributing in PvP (Incoming Healing from rank deserves a mention too).

Also 10s Shield Bash is hilariously broken. How can you not see that? How can that ever be implemented? Conceptually. Fundamentally. It is so apparent that's a god awful change, I mean really...ahahaha....

I might come off as rambling a bit...as honestly I don't want to give better feedback. I've done that before. I am not masochistic enough to pretend I still should. I still think I brought up a lot of vital points.

[Tangaar]

In my opinion Turbine did the right thing. Changes made for PvMP should not affect PvE.

Rather than nerf Freep healing they should buff Creep DPS.

Indeed but the freep mitigations are over the heavens
On a hunter with a tooltip of 8.9k and -10% ignore mits(trait) :
Vitalshot scored a hit with Improved Vital Target on Deathinabow for 2,504 Orc-craft damage to Morale.
he was on solo and im ashamed to say i ganked him to test
DPS wise this build was horrible
./clap

[Oelle]

i totally dont see, where your problem is.
freeps do ~4 times as much damage as creeps. creeps have ~4times the morale freeps have and ~2times their healing... so, healing of creeps is still bad compared to freeps^^
if they buff creephealing once more by doubling it, then we would have pvmp nearly balanced^^

then, one could start and do an overall reduce of healing by 75% as long as anyone is in the ettens for BOTH freeps and creeps and pvmp might be fine.

i like all of those changes. dont really care about pvmp, but still is see, that this are nice changes.
the non-pvmp-changes are just awesome. some long hoped for fixes there

[infinitewhimsy]

To take a break from the PvP QQ and having read the rest of the changes (I was honestly expecting massive counter buffs to Freeps making it all moot)...

• 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.

These are tremendously nice changes. Very welcome stuff.

[Leopoldio]

By the way

I wanted to ask you this, good in-game friend :

Is Leostorm on Landroval server yours?

Because I believe he/she plays the RK class exactly like you do?

Have a good one
Cheers

Nop. Its different person. He used to play on brandy, prolly transfered to avoid confusion with me, hehe :P He said me before a lot of ppl confusing him with me lol.

[pittcrew1]

Issues I have found:

• Give the 'Blessing of the Valar' item 2 sets of the Virtue Rank Upgrades, to equal 8, like how you would get from going insta-level 50 and then insta-level 95. I know there's a difference in price, but I think the only thing that should exist for is to encourage people to buy the level 95 one right away rather than holding off and getting 1 at a time.
• Some Character-Bound housing items are still not Account-Bound, the ones I found were from Bounder's Bounty.
• I would recommend you make the 'Ingredient Crate' and 'Premium Ingredient Crate' only usable by the owner account, if possible. I would also suggest maybe making the item itself have the CD, but then you could just pick it and re-place. Just as it is now, each character can use each, getting 9 per day per char... you can have like 42 chars... that's a TON of mats per day (even if the slots cost $). May be risky to have as it is. I like the idea, but it's risky. I would almost suggest you just make it a consumable or something and it pops up as a Hobbit-Present-esque thing to make it once per account. But definitely make it only usable by the owner account, regardless of house's permissions, or else people will flock to 1 house to get their daily stuff. (Note: I really love these types of items; other games have it, I think it's a good thing for like volume completions... a gift that keeps on giving and is compelling, but make it fit in a bunch of decoration spots. Small yard is very limiting, especially if it will be expanded for other things, even though yard makes sense based on the idea that someone drops it off.

Think that's it, will make another post if I find more.

Adding:

• All Crafting Facilities should fit in at least 2 sizes of housing slots. Farmland in special furniture/large Yard, Oven in large yard/special/large furniture, everything else in large furniture/small yard. This will let people make use of everything all at once in a deluxe house. Also, would recommend you change Gondorian Supplier Horn to also be Small Furniture, to let them be inside. And as above, Ingredient Caches to small furniture as well (even with it's description).

Suggestion:

• Add a Crafting Guild Summoning Horn/Bookshelf or something for all guild recipes and trades and stuff.

[Riddim The Legend]

I am a warg from Ark, I'd like to see some dmg increase and as someone said maybe a little, just little morale increase. Warg with 130k morale? HELL NO!

Maybe some changes and buffs for corruptions but please not that much morale..

Maybe some increased healing but not as much as others said - 30k non crit fell restoration - too much.

[Axeny]

Come on, U17 brought so many freep buffs and not a single change towards creeps. U17.1 will finally bring creeps on level. On a complete different level, a CPT can go up to 108,000 morale on live. Pretty much the same with Guard/Ward(considering they will have to sacrifice mitigations and other stuff). LM Lightning storm regularly oneshots wargs, Insult to injury keeps hitting for 30+k ignoring all mitigations, Wardens having pretty much 60k morale(double NS) while having insane dps, not gonna even start about fire RKs,beornings and healing minstrels. Get a CPT in your group and bam you have 40+k morale RKS with 30% heal every 15 seconds that do insane amoutn of dmg.

On the other hand, this is, obviously, balanced for equal fights between equal quality of freeps/creeps. Six Man group of good creeps will actually stand chance against a good freep group and the fight could go either way. On the other one though, casual freeps will be scapegoats. But we've all seen what happens when the game is balanced towards casual players, it leads a good kin groups being able to stand against 15+ creeps. In most cases one side will suffer, and since U17 creeps were the ones who were suffering.

Whats wrong with 1v1s? Just feel free to use some of your cooldowns that you didn't want to use before to make fights fair like warden self heals, sprints, touch and go and everything. They will be mostly by default(unless you are hunter ofc, hunters are screwed), no need to nerf yourself.

10 second War leader Stun? Are we aware that Guardians have an AOE stun that is not exactly melee range as well, that is mostly the same. Also that 10 second stun will be transformed into 5 second stun(because it is Ettenmoors) and then it will go through Audacity, which will leave it at 2 seconds instead of 1 second as it is right now. Then diminishing returns will start kicking and that stun won't be even noticed. You can also always pot that stun, every class have a skill whcih does that + a pot, while creeps only have to rely on pot or WL purge/snap. Or you can always compare it with rks Armour of Storm/stone, which just keeps stunning/slowing/dazing people. The stun won't work on the most important people in the fellowship/raid anyways, as every minstrel should have an antistun from the LM.

So creeps needed those buffs. Maybe not exactly as big as it is right now, so maybe buffing the creeps morale by 50%, instead of 100% while keeping the healing as it is right now in BR will be okey. This will result in more equal solo/small group fights, while still making it easy to heal your friends in a fellowship. In such a situating 80k Crit on big WL heal won't be that bad, because TS will crit the same percantage of morale as it is on Minstrels and share almost the same cooldown.

So the result of this will be that 1 good freep will rarely be able to take two even mediocre creeps. If you are outnumbered you will most likely die. But isn't that how it is supposed to be?

P.S To avoid all random insults this post might generate, I will give you a nice riddle to answer me, so you can see the things from the other side. (This happens on U17 as it is right now on live)A group of 6 creeps, 1 WL and 1 Defiler + 4 DPS meets 6 freeps(1LM,1CPT,2xRK,1GRD,1Min strel). LM antistuns Guardian, Guardian(60k morale) keeps shield wall on minstrel(45k morale), CPT uses oathbreakers on the War Leader. How long will War Leader survive and what are the chances of that creep group to win this fight? Equal numbers, we can accept that all creeps are r15s, i.e have all skills, good game knowledge. Answer(spoilers!): Less than 15 seconds, 0%.

[Riddim The Legend]

Thanks for the PvMP changes.


P.S.: Guys maybe you'lll just stop QQIng ? Creeps got at least SOME KIND of a buff...and u still all crying. This was OUT OF THE schedule as Ene mentioned. Be thankful for that. Hopefully, more balance/senseful changes will be done in future PvMP-specific updates though.

People are happy that turbine is working on pvp but you have to realise that in this current beta its too much of some things and some things are lacking. Rather make small changes every update or two than do it like this.

If someone cooked a cake for you and put too much sugar would you eat it even if it's not tasty?

[Leopoldio]

People are happy that turbine is working on pvp but you have to realise that in this current beta its too much of some things and some things are lacking. Rather make small changes every update or two than do it like this.

If someone cooked a cake for you and put too much sugar would you eat it even if it's not tasty?

Its either this or nothing. So i'd rather like to see this change then nothing it all. It doesnt matter what you/all QQers saying ... havent u mentioned that yet ? Turbine implements things by THEIR plan. Not ur threads, not ur qq, not ur tickets. Get over it.

[Riddim The Legend]

Its either this or nothing. So i'd rather like to see this change then nothing it all. It doesnt matter what you/all QQers saying ... havent u mentioned that yet ? Turbine implements things by THEIR plan. Not ur threads, not ur qq, not ur tickets. Get over it.

Me QQ? You must be from another planet, I'm a full time creep and I don't want to see 70% of freeps leave the game, what will I have to kill then?

If someone cooked a cake for you and put too much sugar would you eat it even if it's not tasty?

[KrauserJoestar]

Its either this or nothing. So i'd rather like to see this change then nothing it all. It doesnt matter what you/all QQers saying ... havent u mentioned that yet ? Turbine implements things by THEIR plan. Not ur threads, not ur qq, not ur tickets. Get over it.

Great logic right here. So, if you want to take a bath and the only option is to take a bath full of dog #### or not take one, you'll take it instead of not taking it?

Further proof turbine listens to these kind of people that are always happy no matter the amount of #### they get shoved down their throats.

Raiding in PVE was killed after 85 and now PvP overall will be killed as well most likely. I don't care if it's the first preliminary, it shows clearly that turbine doesn't know what they're doing. I haven't played creep in 2 years and I bet the same bugs are still there. How about increasing their dps overall, incoming healing and a bit of morale instead of going full ###### on morale? WL with 380K morale? Is this some kind of joke?
But of course, the players opinion doesn't matter according to you.


You know what, #### off honestly.

[Xiblar]

PvMP changes:

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

The increased morale pools are way to much. Just let the morale like its on live or at least lower the % of the increase.

Healing mangitudes seems good so far and absolutely manageable for freeps, they just need to do a fast target switch instead of ingoring hots on target and just burst it down like its on live.

Creeps dps has not been increased with this few updates to some skills, at least its not really noticeable that there was an increase.
I just can talk about reaver class and there I would love to see a skill damage increase of 15-30%(high dmg skills like impale and dev strike maybe lesser than the other skills) to compete with freeps morale/heal ratio

[Riddim The Legend]

The increased morale pools are way to much. Just let the morale like its on live or at least lower the % of the increase.

Healing mangitudes seems good so far and absolutely manageable for freeps, they just need to do a fast target switch instead of ingoring hots on target and just burst it down like its on live.

Creeps dps has not been increased with this few updates to some skills, at least its not really noticeable that there was an increase.
I just can talk about reaver class and there I would love to see a skill damage increase of 15-30%(high dmg skills like impale and dev strike maybe lesser than the other skills) to compete with freeps morale/heal ratio

I agree with you. Morale is pretty much ok, maybe a few % would do the job just to seperate wargs from minstrels (60k morale warg/60k morale mini).

I will agree with heals as well, no need to nerf freep heals, keep defilers heals buffed, after all defilers can't flop like minstrels.

Good to see some smart people around

[Spilo]

On the other hand, this is, obviously, balanced for equal fights between equal quality of freeps/creeps. Six Man group of good creeps will actually stand chance against a good freep group and the fight could go either way. On the other one though, casual freeps will be scapegoats. But we've all seen what happens when the game is balanced towards casual players, it leads a good kin groups being able to stand against 15+ creeps. In most cases one side will suffer, and since U17 creeps were the ones who were suffering.

No, they don't. Creeps still do not have the damage to take down a good freep healer, and freep heals have not been adjusted. We don't need more morale. We need damage. Revert back to the prior morale levels, place a -25% incoming healing debuff on all freeps entering the Moors, increase the damage of Creep skills a tad further, and call it a day. So incredibly simple, but Turbine hasn't done it.

[JustAnotherElf]

I've been given the rough numbers on what morale pools look like in this build and to be frank I agree with many of the creeps that post here saying that it's way over the board. The past year I've abandoned all of my toons except for Warg and WL and I want neither of them to have over 130-200k, it is simply unnecessary. As a WL I am glad I will be able to stay longer than the duration of 3 channeled Smouldering Wraths on my head but even there, doubling my morale solves very little and creates many more problems. As a warg I can kill quite a big percentage of what I see out in the Moors, provided that it is not a blue healer(or yellow in case of bears) or spam healing warden/guardian/bear (still in many cases even those can be dealt with), however that being said it is becoming somewhat silly fighting a 50k guard with WH, PotW, BotP and rejuvenation potions (topped with full range of store buffs) while I only have 61k-77k myself.

However me having 160k is just as silly a notion, I see absolutely no way not facerolling single targets (even now less capable freeps can be taken on 1 vs 2/3 just because the game is dumbing things down for the masses) when I am on warg, while we are getting nothing to deal with broken blue minstrel, bear and RK heals. Now I am not asking for being able to solo a blue mini (not counting the bad players) but in the very least if I find myself among 2-3 players that know their class in and out with DPS ranging from 3k to 6k (pve) and 1k-2k (freeps) I expect in the very least to have made a dent in the said healer.

Morale boost seems like a very poor choice, but there are two things to consider: a) Developers already know their plans for the freep bling that comes with the updates, so they might be thinking ahead. b) If I were to choose between having this update or having none, I will pick creep love every time. I am almost certain it will kill the action for me (as a creep) and I will not be logging in to make freepos miserable, but at least I will know that creeps will get enough flippers so that my help will not be needed.

[JustAnotherElf]

No, they don't. Creeps still do not have the damage to take down a good freep healer, and freep heals have not been adjusted. We don't need more morale. We need damage. Revert back to the prior morale levels, place a -25% incoming healing debuff on all freeps entering the Moors, increase the damage of Creep skills a tad further, and call it a day. So incredibly simple, but Turbine hasn't done it.

That is precisely what has to be done to save the PvP, not morale pools nor too much DPS since many non healing classes like hunters, champs and captains are already dropping like flies when facing a capable DPS creep.

It is the healers like RKs, Minstrels, Beornings that must have the -25% debuff (even if only when in healing tree) on healing applied to them when in Moors.

[Amene]

Turbine has no brain.

[Xiblar]

That is precisely what has to be done to save the PvP, not morale pools nor too much DPS since many non healing classes like hunters, champs and captains are already dropping like flies when facing a capable DPS creep.

Well then i guess you are fighting agains very terrible champs/cappies. If play one of these two classes out in the moors the only classes that can be a real opponent is spider or wrath spamming reaver but no other class. But for reavers I can say its not a problem of their dmg but only their heals which is a fail on the whole line on a dps class. Hunters depends on what traitline they are but even hunters can be ridiculously op.
But nevertheless I agree that too much dps isn't the best solution but 15-30% more dmg wouldn't be too much in my opinion.

[Chodelet]

Yet another ill-conceived and poorly executed update for PVP. But who's surprised? Making one side stupid easy then alternating every few updates is not the way to provide a quality PVP environment. Not that this is new news. But, clearly, 8 years in the message is still not getting through...

Also, strong LOL at much of the whining in this thread about the sky falling due to imbalance and that Freeps are going to leave the game in droves. Are these the same Freeps who have no problem logging in now and enjoying the current mechanics, overgrouping with multiple blue minstrels, lore masters and fire rks to fight solos and small groups and camping a rez when no opposition is forthcoming? Throwing up grats threads as if today's PVP means something, "Well deserved, m8! Onward to next rank!" And we're supposed to lament the loss of these players? lol... Please!

Yes, let's all just shut our eyes, rail about injustice, and pretend that a large number of them won't just be flipping Creepside as always happens when an update alters which side becomes the path of least resistance.

[infinitewhimsy]

No, they don't. Creeps still do not have the damage to take down a good freep healer, and freep heals have not been adjusted. .

This, if anything, should be the take away.

Personally I don't think a -25% Incoming Healing debuff on Freeps will do much of anything to Minstrels. Just remove the 2nd AoE BC trait in Blue (Bolster Our Courage).

[Frelorn]

Thanks everyone who have given us constructive, rational feedback without personal attacks or insults. Based on the feedback that we have seen and requested from Bullroarer last night, we will be reducing the morale pool increase that was put in place. There will still be a health increase but it will be significantly less than what was seen and tested yesterday.