Bullroarer Update 23 (Build #1) - Preview and General Feedback

[Arnenna]

Landscape/Quest items seem to give 40 - 50 of the new type of ash (Motes of Enchantment)

Travellers Gear (from teal selection box) when deconstructed gives the old type of ash (Ashes of Enchantment currently mislabelled "Motes of Enchantment")
Heroic Gear (from selection box) when deconstructed gives the new type of ash (Motes of Enchantment), costs 500, decons for 85

To put this into perspective, I've opened 2 Heroic Lootboxes on BR (using Black Steel Keys) and both gave me 240 of the new type of ash (Motes of Enchantment). Not sure what instances drop in terms of new type of ash, but black steel keys from FIs, dailies (old & new) and heroic lootboxes is going to be key route when gearing as things stand. This means end game players will be active in Mordor, Dale and Iron Hills in addition to FIs and new instances assuming black steel keys from dailies remain in those areas.

Bug: The Heroic Light Shields (might & will ones) for some reason give the old type of ash when deconstructed and not the new type.

I'm not going to bank on the old black keys opening the new boxes on Live, though I'll be shocked (pleasantly surprised) if they do. I don't think there would be a new type of box, without a new type of key to open it is all. If your assumption that black steel keys will remain the opening tool is correct, then that eases both the grind and the P2W aspect of all this, and players have a reasonable chance at in game earning through doing content . . . so naturally, I hope you are right about it.

If it's a new key, with dailies that award 3 a week (as originally planned for Mordor), then I'll probably be too busy reading the deluge of complaints (valid ones) on the forum, to actually do any of the grind.

I've seen no new key on the database, and there is nothing to suggest it on BR, so, either you're correct, or SSG are holding off on letting that bee out of the bonnet (which will really speak for itself).

[Lord.Funk]

I'm not going to bank on the old black keys opening the new boxes on Live, though I'll be shocked (pleasantly surprised) if they do. I don't think there would be a new type of box, without a new type of key to open it is all. If your assumption that black steel keys will remain the opening tool, then that eases both the grind and the P2W aspect of all this, and players have a reasonable chance at in game earning through doing content . . . so naturally, I hope you are right about it.

If it's a new key, with dailies that award 3 a week (as originally planned for Mordor), then I'll probably be too busy reading the deluge of complaints (valid ones) on the forum, to actually do any of the grind.

Or there will be some cap/artificial barrier on how many slivers/keys You can earn. Maybe You have to chose from a pool of dailies in the new are vs Mordor vs NM and can't do them all. Chose X amount and that is all You can do per day/week/whatever. So even if all of them still reward slivers/keys, You will not be able to do them all each round. That would be my guess or as You say a new type of key. In any way I'm certain there will be some limitation/artificial barrier as that seem to be in everything from now on. Except of course no limitation on how many keys You can buy from the store. *rolleyes*

Anyway. I just got home but I'm off again. I have some errands that I must do. Some stuff for my old mom. So I have to go all the way there too. I won't be back on until much later tonight. I hope to catch You then if You're on that is.

[Scenario]

Scenario would knock down every impassable everywhere, if we let him. But it's best to do that in a controlled fashion!

[Lord.Funk]

Scenario would knock down every impassable everywhere, if we let him. But it's best to do that in a controlled fashion!

Let scenario roam free !!!

I might come camp with banners and all outside SSG's headquarters.

[Arnenna]

Let scenario free !!!

I might come camp with banners and all outside SSG's headquarters.

Yep, cut him loose. Bring on the wild side

[Cil.]

And there are lots of people that have opened zero lootboxes who clear the raid regularly. [...]
My concern is that with all of this complaining about lootboxes we miss what is the larger issue in my opinion, which is the daily loot locks on instances.

I desagree ... And I agree !

Desagree the first point : I'm quite sure all those who have finished the raid have opened some boxes. Maybe they have not bought any key for that (got them with daily quest), but they DO have open lootboxes. Simply because there's no other viable way to have ashes. This is not 7 chests by day (CoS 115 T1 T2) that gives you enough ashes to buy the stuff in a decent delay. With chance, you can have on average 3 objects to transform in ashes... That's not enough if you have just one HL character. That's more unfair for those who are VIP. If you don't want to open lootboxes, you have to do ALL daily quest (I said ALL !), so play solo (to get other tokens, buy stuff, then turn it into ashes). Which is the opposite purpose of MMO games.

That's why I agree the second point. The daily lock is the biggest thing to review.

But also, currently lootboxes could give you a better stuff than CoS T2C, and better chance to get some stuff than Abyss T1 or T2 (maybe not better gear, quite the same, but more often). That's P2W, and that's why people are desappointed.

[Thurinuor]

My concern is that with all of this complaining about lootboxes we miss what is the larger issue in my opinion, which is the daily loot locks on instances. Daily loot locks unduly punish people that have no alts or play classes that are not ideal for completing the content, and they discourage people from playing the content. That's the exact opposite of what SSG should want, and it is definitely the opposite of what we as players do want.

If there would be no lock, people would run the instances 40 times on day one and complain in the forums about lack of content. There is reason why SSG is doing this. These are the typical mechanics of all MMORPGs to prevent people for rushing the content. Especially when you are not blizzard and have limited ressources you have to keep players busy as long as you can, so you can develop new content in the meantime.

[Cil.]

If there would be no lock, people would run the instances 40 times on day one and complain in the forums about lack of content.

Hum... Instead, we run hundreds daily quests, and complain in the forums about lack of content. That's more terrible, because we run it SOLO. I repet : LOTRO is an MMO game !
Maybe a compromise : unlock, but at every run your chance to drop something decrease. Or instead, the first time you got ashes and stuff, then only ashes, then only little things (for legendary items f.e.)

[Arnenna]

If there would be no lock, people would run the instances 40 times on day one and complain in the forums about lack of content. There is reason why SSG is doing this. These are the typical mechanics of all MMORPGs to prevent people for rushing the content. Especially when you are not blizzard and have limited ressources you have to keep players busy as long as you can, so you can develop new content in the meantime.

It doesn't keep them busy. They do their daily quota, then log out as there is nothing to do for the rest of that day. Add to that, when players have already run it, they are very reluctant to re-run it because there is no point in doing so. That then creates an environment where people struggle to find groups, more and more as the day goes by.

I've played the game for 6 years, and before all this dailiy lock stuff, I've seen way less complaints about "need something to do", over the period since Rohan to Pelennor than we've had since Mordor and it's daily locks.

I understand the requirement to keep ash under control, so, cap that, and that alone (already done to some degree with the ash cap), but keep meaningful reward in unlocked instances, so that players can actually play them more than once a day.

A player logging out after an hour's play each day, is just as destructive as a player logging off after throttling it for a couple of months.

[Vastin]

If there would be no lock, people would run the instances 40 times on day one and complain in the forums about lack of content. There is reason why SSG is doing this.

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

[Cil.]

Another reason why the people may complain about lack of content... Is not the lack of content. LOTRO has a huge panel of group content (many BG, a lot of skirmishes, instances) and that's really great !!!
There's so much things to do !
But the rewards are most of time not well adjusted to the level we launch it ! So people don't want to run it anymore... and so complain about lack of content.
If there is a daily lock, at least please review the rewards of those instances to have the correct level on it, and not only in the latest released instances.

[Arnenna]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

In my experience, there is far less community togetherness in the game since Mordor, than in any other game era that I've played. Others that I know feel exactly the same way. Raid locks are one thing, but locks on instances are relatively new, and LOTRO survived very well without them for a very long time.

Now, when I log in, if its late in the day, most other players have already done the instances for their daily quota, and they aren't that interested in re-running them for zero reward. That's natural and how most players look at things. What that does is section the community to their relative time slots in the RL world. We all play in Tolkien's world, so that scenario doesn't fit. I just can't fathom ever reading in LotR where Aragorn says to his soldiers, "on you go men", I will have to sit this one out because I did it this morning".

[elzeqq]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

Locks on raid should be always. But locks on 3/6man instances are not good and very unhealthy for lotro community. I think, you understand that Vastin.

[MAWorking]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.



-Vastin

I get it, I agree.
I ran COS over and over and over again. It was a serious cash cow.

I am fine with raid locks, but a possible solution could be: All drops are bind to character. (no mat drops, no unique item drops)

[Seodric]

I really liked how it was at 75 cap tbh. Foundry had a daily lock on the sigils, but you could still get gear and item loot from the chests (though these items weren't many, it still made it possible to run multiple times a day if you really needed an item). The main attraction of foundry and the other instances were mainly the sigils anyways, after you geared out your character. The 3 mans had no locks.

Raid lock is quite given, since it's there you usually find Best in Slot items.

[Arnenna]

I get it, I agree.
I ran COS over and over and over again. It was a serious cash cow.

I am fine with raid locks, but a possible solution could be: All drops are bind to character. (no mat drops, no unique item drops)

Another solution . . . and one that covers all the bases that Vastin mentioned, while holding on to that community togetherness.

1. Add a daily lock for the first week. That should be enough time for any content/reward exploits to be found, and dealt with.
2. Release the lock after the week is over, and cap the ash reward to once a day (quest turn in like in Thrang).
3. Ensure there is a rare item inside the run with a low enough boss kill , drop rate (or chest roll) to keep players going for it (kinda like the gold items of level 85 days). Add one item to each of the instances in the cluster, then change them up after a couple of months and put them on rotation.

Players will be all over it for the rare drop. Community togetherness will be in high flow. Ash stays under control. Sorted.

[mmdur1]

I think we already have a good solution to the instance lock issue - use the same tech that you do for Featured Instances. First time you run it for the day you get a special reward. Every other time you run it you get regular chests. This incentivizes people to run it every day, but doesn't punish people too harshly who run it more than once to help friends.

Also, Vastin, it is important to differentiate between raid locks and instance loot locks. I completely support raid locks (actually, I really love the way you re-did raid locks for Abyss), but instance loot locks are another thing entirely. In my opinion, rather than help bring the community together they break it apart by making people less likely to group up at all more than once a day.

[Ethirielll]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

So lootboxes and ash have nothing to do with instance locks?

[Hephburz-2]

Whilst your reasoning is completely understandable Vastin, it does not and is not actually working in practice;

1. There are people within the game who are very instance-focused, and want to play instances as much and as often as possible - raid locks are completely understandable, once the raid is on ''farm'' so to speak, it stops people from piling mass amounts of loot, especially with regards to crafting materials and the like that can be sold. In my experience I haven't met anyone who firstly, is in favour of these locks except for you the devs, and secondly I haven't met anyone who has religiously run the instances for 48 hours on end and then not bothered at all anymore.

2. As already stipulated, you have a lot of people who end up not being able to do the instances at all, because by the time they are home from work - or finished with all real life commitments they cannot find a suitable group that is able to complete the instance. Or people who prefer to only group with their friends who cannot because they've all completed the instance already.

3. In order to continue to be able to run the instance you force people to level up countless countless alts, this forced people to run the landscape over and over again just so they can do the instances (of course people have the option to Warg Pen farm till level cap). Moreover, the game since mordor (even before) has been very unfriendly towards people having many alts.

4. The game survived very well without these locks in place before-hand, and if anything actually forces people to play less, because in the past I would quite happily sit and run an instance 10-15 times a day with my friends to get loot, now after I've locked all my alts, what am I to do, run another character through landscape or log off? (And by this, what am I to do that I find enjoyable/fun?).

5. There are plenty of work arounds to the issues you have stipulated, such as making items account bound or making "certain" rare loot, daily locked, but do not take everything away from the instance so that you can only do it once.

6. Why allow people to buy endless amounts of keys and open lootboxes to gain everything they could gain from instances anyway? This is not keeping the community on par at all - and you may argue that there aren't many people who do this, but there is enough, and its enough to upset the balance within the community, but something the dev team has completely ignored.

On a separate note;

If you adjusted the loot in old/scale-able content people would also run those instances and then people wouldn't feel the need to run the same instance over and over again, you know?

[Fraushgrish2]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

Yes your right, but now your giving in to the people that cant run it a lot and people like me (a student who thinks its WAYYYYY TOO HOT OUTSIDE) cant run your content more then once per day so i leave the game, the 48 hours farmers are the pefered playyer base because they clearly care so much about your game that theyre willing to invest that much time in it, and there are ways to stop people from running an instance, the 48 hours a day number is EXTREMELY EXAGGERATED if you do an instance more then 15-20 times you get and instance lock, lotro 3-6 mans are like 30 min, 48 hours a day? cmon man.

Overall the people who cant invest the time shouldnt get the gear its unfair and you literally killing you own game (btw now that gearing is soooo easy it leads to terrible players trying to raid and getting insulted and banned from raiding cause every raider will tell each other " yo this guy sucks" and he will never get inv so in the end whats the point???????????)

[chrisoxmo]

Pacing is in fact the main reason for the raid locks. In theory it helps keep the community together in terms of timing and their interests in the game.

In the past we've run into the problem that the community divides widely in the pace at which they approach the game. Some people only run a couple hours on the weekend, maybe do one or two instance runs and they're done for the week. At the other end of the spectrum some groups will literally run instances nonstop for 48 hours straight from the moment the content drops - and then yeah, they're bored and out of sync with the rest of the community, which has barely even gotten a look at it yet.

So the locks serve as a server-wide pacing mechanism. It certainly doesn't keep everyone on the same page community-wise, but it helps keep them in the same general ballpark, at least for a while. Granted, it may seem a little old-fashioned in the age of binge watching Netflix shows, but that's the reasoning at any rate.

Maintaining some sense of community is a Big Deal(tm) in an MMO, especially a very long running one like LOTRO, and there are a lot of basic design elements to the genre that make it especially difficult to maintain - such as leveling, which striates the community all over the board into groups that have difficulty playing with each other. Thus we make efforts where we can to try to keep the concept of community and group play relevant.

Another reason for the locks, frankly, is that they also give us time to address serious problems that might arise, such as content or reward exploits, before they can cause too much damage and force us to commit a server-wide rollback or something horrible like that.

-Vastin

Obviously the best reason for SSG is that it helps limit the ash anyone can get daily, outside of lootboxes, making those lootboxes even more attracting for the players and increase their sales. You don't care if the people can gear fully on day 1 with lootboxes, but you care if they do it with farming.

[Isdryal]

6. Why allow people to buy endless amounts of keys and open lootboxes to gain everything they could gain from instances anyway? This is not keeping the community on par at all - and you may argue that there aren't many people who do this, but there is enough, and its enough to upset the balance within the community, but something the dev team has completely ignored.

@Vastin

Just this point alone counters your entire statement.

[Beastnas]

I don't agree with instance locks (for 3 and 6-mans) helping maintain a sense of community. Instances like in Pelennor Cluster and Court of Seregost (before it got locks) were farmed daily for months and months by essentially the whole playerbase. I also don't believe it's fair to say all the hardcore farmers will do it for a day and quit. If the quality and rarity of the rewards are commensurate to the mechanics of the instance, and vice versa, it shouldn't be a problem to let all playstyles go at it freely.

[Hephburz-2]

You don't care if the people can gear fully on day 1 with lootboxes, but you care if they do it with farming.

Which is the real irony here.

[Skyfoot]

You don't care if the people can gear fully on day 1 with lootboxes, but you care if they do it with farming.

Bingo!