Bullroarer Update 23 Preview #2: Release Notes and Feedback Thread

[Kasius]

Please keep the feedback directed toward the preview, rather than turn the thread into a personal fight over your or someone else's opinion.

Any Statement on the T2 Instance difficulty? it feels very very unfinished atm.

[Macdui]

Regarding Morale and Power Potion updates, the changes to Tier 12 Crafted potions were not meant to indicate that we'd be re-doing the numbers on all potions available in-game for Update 23. Perhaps longer-term that's something we can look at, but it's out of scope for this current Update in development, sorry. There are two main drivers for %-based Morale and Power potions available in the new Lootboxes for U23, one of which is player request to make these potions, and the other being it allows us to add them to the generated-reward table for Lootboxes in a way that is relatively level-independent. Rather than adding a dozen or so potions and track it based on the level of the character opening the lootbox, it allows us to add three potions that can apply to any level. We have lowered the benefit for this week's Bullroarer update, and have added the two minute cooldown, and would appreciate any further feedback you have.

We are also aware of the Mac issues on Bullroarer, and our engineering folks are looking into it.

Can you tell the person who did the T12 crafted morale and power recipes something. Their changes propagated to Supreme Doomfold, Doomfold and Anorien, I infer this was not the intent ^. Anyone who plays knows that power use for skills was changed to a percentage based system some time ago. This means that by and large we all have power pools in the range of 6k to 9k at higher levels. The new crafted power pot wants to return to us ~190k power on use. So in future when this dev/systems engineer tells you the sky is blue, have a mind to check out the window first and then get a second opinion. When you tell the community that this Dev/Engineer is reading our "important" feedback that maybe they aren't and we'll call out "lie". Please get briefed by people who play, not by those who gave up years ago or never even started. Keep your enemies closer, you will learn more.

The "driver" for these pots, Lootboxes and players. As a suggestion it stinks of Freeps wanting an advantage. Ofc a link would be nice to see what was said, the rare times I do look at the Suggestions Forum there's always a lot of bizarre stuff that's just plain stupid and you'd have to be really disconnected with the game to support. Usually I stick with reading stuff that follows the guidelines' format (a rarity) in the hope that you don't read the other stuff. Maybe we should "police" this more and make arguments there rather than in Beta. Yes the Lootboxes, what a beloved system that's turned out to be.

What could help with the suggestions forums could be some input on threads from devs indicating their approval or not. Dev Tracker would flag them for our attention. Likewise a Bugs Forum could have us reporting on dev generated threads when understanding is needed. We should both want to avoid the waste from implementing dubious systems. Finally when you call a dev/engineer "shy" know that many of us conclude an entirely different definition but I'm sure you really know that.


Mac

[Bighanson1]

seems it's still not enough pressure for them lul ...

How about SSG actually implements things the players WANT for this 'instance-focused' update;

• Exciting and challenging endgame group content
• Interesting and cool itemization rather than copy/pasting the same pieces of gear 20 times and increasing their item levels slightly. LOTRO is about the story and the lore, and we have had great items with story woven through them in the past. Why are we only getting boring, uninspired, poorly conceived copy/pasted loot ever since SSG took over (yes, there hasn't been any of these cool items in game since U19 except for MoL's Heirlooms from the Black Book of Mordor, which were sadly turned irrelevant after a few levels due to being low quality green gear)
• Stop building the endgame around lootboxes and then coming up with all kinds of nonsensical justifications for game decisions that were either made in a blatantly obvious attempt to push store Key sales, or made by people so disconnected from the game they have no idea how their changes actually impact the game (key dailies nerf, no more Ash in landscape becaue it was a 'Bug', all ingame keys bound to account, constantly updating lootbox tables while ignoring instance/raid loot tables)
• Remove instance locks from the handful of group content we have, or make more group content relevant

signed, Hanson

[XbammyX]

Please keep the feedback directed toward the preview, rather than turn the thread into a personal fight over your or someone else's opinion.

I do not think SSG actually wants real feedback, or, at least, it certainly does not feel that way. Over the last week it has become much more clear to the wider player base something that the more hardcore raiders and PvPers have known for years now, namely the inability or unwillingness of developers to understand or implement what players actually want. This held true for Turbine and now with SSG as well. Clearly, the problems at SSG are not simply due to ignorance of what instance-goers want from an "instance-focused" update, as you have received plenty of suggestions just in the last week, but rather it seems that it is due to a genuine disinterest in what your more active/hardcore players want.

If you wanted to take a critical look into why this disconnect exists, you could argue that it is due to the lack of interaction between actual developers and the players. Rather than having the actual instance/raid developers communicate with players like myself (3 Server First titles, World first and several server firsts in Nightmare/NiM Power SWTOR, competitive balancing experience in PvE and PvP games, and more), Knight, Drizzels, Xolla (World first Throne&Abyss and near unparalleled mechanical knowledge), or literally anyone else who might have some clue about what the raiding/instance community wants, SSG instead uses you (Cord) as a mouthpiece to relay messages between developers and us as if you were some kind of carrier pigeon, with some not-so-uncommon miscommunication (Immediate skill animation cutting?). It is shocking that an actual competitive T2C raiding team has never once in the history of this game been brought in to test the raids on Palantir before ever coming close to hitting Bullroarer, and has never physically sat down with a developer and gave feedback about a raid/instance in real time as the developer watches what is happening. It's even more shocking when you consider that this is standard practice in MANY other MMO's such as WoW, EQ, SWTOR, etc. But, per usual, why ask raiders to help design raids when SSG can simply rely on the opinions of a collection of 100 players with almost zero interest, experience, and/or ability to help develop genuinely challenging t2/t3 content? Also the same 100 people where the majority thought that it was acceptable to allow Thikil-Gundu Tier 2 to arrive on Bullroarer in its current state, and make no mistake, Thikil-Gundu T2, as of now, is an abomination compared to even Court of Seregost.

Recently, Vastin and the other developer (excuse my memory but I couldn't remember his name off the top of my head) have been making genuine efforts to take feedback from players on how to improve class mechanics (although I still criticize his lack of consulting the best hunters in the world like Drizzels, Myself, Shiirk, etc. personally about Hunter balance in T2C and PvP content), but the poor guys seem like the odd-ones out, and are already swamped with redesigning, balancing, and testing every class on their own. It would be great to see the same thing from the raid developers, and even better to actually have Faded, Unicorns, Odyssey, Avorthelier, etc. invited to Palantir to test out the new raid (FOR FREE BTW) and offer the same kind of feedback you see on the class forums, but sadly I don't think that's going to happen.

I've already posted my thoughts about those "challenges" that you asked to hear about in this very thread, yet it goes unanswered.
There's a thread nearing 15 pages with massive outcry from your player base to remove instance locks, yet it goes unanswered (no blue responses in sight).
There's dozens of threads weekly asking SSG to address the absolute dire state of PvP content, yet they remain in the freezer. Not even on the back burner, still in the freezer, left to die. (Accidental "balances" changes due to unintended stat reworks don't count)
There's been hundreds of complaints since Abyss was on Bullroarer that the new instances just simply aren't that challenging compared to Throne, but again, we are ignored.

Sad!

[CaerArianrhod]

Some Feedback:

General criticism:
We will get with U23 Mordor 2.0.

• Stats are across the board a bit broken
• Neither further class balancing nor any skill consolidation across classes, like all morale bubbles grant x% of max morale etc.
• Crafting - as far as present - is broken
• More premium shop items (potions) for a very unbalanced p2w game-play.
• The Mordor schema is used again:
  
  • Rework all stats
  • Bring new (higher) item-level with purple and teal items with the update
  • Bring a whole new level of teal items after 2 months
  • Bring new items and item-sets and new legendary quality items after other two month or with the raid

Stats & Stat Caps:
I think the stat caps are at level 120 a bit to high positioned or the ratings on gear are a bit to low. (except you already know, you will bring within 3 or 4 months the new level of items to get higher stats) I'm thinking esp. for Tank classes. Albeit i think, we will not run fully capped around as it will be not necessary until T3, i just made some tires.

Mitigations & Mastery:
A fully geared level 120 Guardian: all virtues, base stats tomes (vita, might etc.) at max. Gear with the T1 and barterable hero-boxes gear (Keeper of Mysteries) for tanking: I had to slot 6 (six!) Tier12 purple tactical mitigation essences to reach the T1 cap tactical mitigation.
Physical mastery: on live my T2 raid guardian has 207% physical mastery, on BR the my lvl 120 Guardian has 59%. (35k!) I would have expected around 70% physical mastery. But the drop to 59% seems relatively huge. I could not test how the tanking is now in instance/group content, therefor I'm not sure that tanks geared with defensive gear do enough damage to be able to hold aggro without perma force aggro skills.
Others may correct me with this:
T1: Mitigation Light Armour ~134K | Mitigation Medium Armour ~150K | Mitigation Heavy Armour ~188K | for T2: need + 11.5K more.

Crit chance:
Some classes depend on high crit chance. Like Minstrel. I found it extremely hard to reach an appropriate rating. 20% crit chance is about 100.8K in rating, for that i slotted all possible slots with the Tier 12 purple crit essences (only good for testing)

Finesse:
Seems OK, but the new Light Armour Gear has no finesse (again!)

BPA: Same as above: caps are at level 120 a bit to high positioned or the ratings on gear are a bit to low.

Summing up: the diminishing return curve seems a bit to high for me.


Instances:
I have only done solo and duo T2 instances:
For T2 they are a bit too easy (compared to T2 instances on live). But i have to admit, that i tested with the best available BiS gear.
Instance Loot: there is no such thing as instance loot there. Even if they are easy, but 87 Silver and nothing else from a T2 boss chest it not a lot at all.

Classes:
Minstrel: outgoing healing rating calculation for OH essences seems broken. Tactical mastery contributes now more to OH rating. Rise the Spirit is still broken.
Warden: self-heals now work properly! Nice.
LM (and DD-RK and DD-Mini too): no finesse on light DPS gear!
Beorning: i didn't even bother to test it (because of problems with OH, the class isn't usable for anything anymore, except being a teddy)

[Hephburz-2]

Some Feedback:

General criticism:
We will get with U23 Mordor 2.0.

• Stats are across the board a bit broken
• Neither further class balancing nor any skill consolidation across classes, like all morale bubbles grant x% of max morale etc.
• Crafting - as far as present - is broken
• More premium shop items (potions) for a very unbalanced p2w game-play.
• The Mordor schema is used again:
  
  • Rework all stats
  • Bring new (higher) item-level with purple and teal items with the update
  • Bring a whole new level of teal items after 2 months
  • Bring new items and item-sets and new legendary quality items after other two month or with the raid

Stats & Stat Caps:
I think the stat caps are at level 120 a bit to high positioned or the ratings on gear are a bit to low. (except you already know, you will bring within 3 or 4 months the new level of items to get higher stats) I'm thinking esp. for Tank classes. Albeit i think, we will not run fully capped around as it will be not necessary until T3, i just made some tires.

Mitigations & Mastery:
A fully geared level 120 Guardian: all virtues, base stats tomes (vita, might etc.) at max. Gear with the T1 and barterable hero-boxes gear (Keeper of Mysteries) for tanking: I had to slot 6 (six!) Tier12 purple tactical mitigation essences to reach the T1 cap tactical mitigation.
Physical mastery: on live my T2 raid guardian has 207% physical mastery, on BR the my lvl 120 Guardian has 59%. (35k!) I would have expected around 70% physical mastery. But the drop to 59% seems relatively huge. I could not test how the tanking is now in instance/group content, therefor I'm not sure that tanks geared with defensive gear do enough damage to be able to hold aggro without perma force aggro skills.
Others may correct me with this:
T1: Mitigation Light Armour ~134K | Mitigation Medium Armour ~150K | Mitigation Heavy Armour ~188K | for T2: need + 11.5K more.

Crit chance:
Some classes depend on high crit chance. Like Minstrel. I found it extremely hard to reach an appropriate rating. 20% crit chance is about 100.8K in rating, for that i slotted all possible slots with the Tier 12 purple crit essences (only good for testing)

Finesse:
Seems OK, but the new Light Armour Gear has no finesse (again!)

BPA: Same as above: caps are at level 120 a bit to high positioned or the ratings on gear are a bit to low.

Summing up: the diminishing return curve seems a bit to high for me.


Instances:
I have only done solo and duo T2 instances:
For T2 they are a bit too easy (compared to T2 instances on live). But i have to admit, that i tested with the best available BiS gear.
Instance Loot: there is no such thing as instance loot there. Even if they are easy, but 87 Silver and nothing else from a T2 boss chest it not a lot at all.

Classes:
Minstrel: outgoing healing rating calculation for OH essences seems broken. Tactical mastery contributes now more to OH rating. Rise the Spirit is still broken.
Warden: self-heals now work properly! Nice.
LM (and DD-RK and DD-Mini too): no finesse on light DPS gear!
Beorning: i didn't even bother to test it (because of problems with OH, the class isn't usable for anything anymore, except being a teddy)

It has been made intentional that you can't reach the caps of things like crit/mitigation; in the past this was never possibly anyway it has only been since the release of essences we have become complacent with always having everything capped (or the necessary things capped) and then shoving everything else into morale. The increase in caps is done to actually make us think about what gear/essences we use rather than a DPSer just slotting all crit/mastery (and a finesse here and there).

[ArsSupervivendi]

....

If you wanted to take a critical look into why this disconnect exists, you could argue that it is due to the lack of interaction between actual developers and the players. Rather than having the actual instance/raid developers communicate with players like myself (3 Server First titles, World first and several server firsts in Nightmare/NiM Power SWTOR, competitive balancing experience in PvE and PvP games, and more), Knight, Drizzels, Xolla (World first Throne&Abyss and near unparalleled mechanical knowledge), or literally anyone else who might have some clue about what the raiding/instance community wants, SSG instead uses you (Cord) as a mouthpiece to relay messages between developers and us as if you were some kind of carrier pigeon, with some not-so-uncommon miscommunication (Immediate skill animation cutting?). It is shocking that an actual competitive T2C raiding team has never once in the history of this game been brought in to test the raids on Palantir before ever coming close to hitting Bullroarer, and has never physically sat down with a developer and gave feedback about a raid/instance in real time as the developer watches what is happening. It's even more shocking when you consider that this is standard practice in MANY other MMO's such as WoW, EQ, SWTOR, etc. But, per usual, why ask raiders to help design raids when SSG can simply rely on the opinions of a collection of 100 players with almost zero interest, experience, and/or ability to help develop genuinely challenging t2/t3 content? Also the same 100 people where the majority thought that it was acceptable to allow Thikil-Gundu Tier 2 to arrive on Bullroarer in its current state, and make no mistake, Thikil-Gundu T2, as of now, is an abomination compared to even Court of Seregost.

Recently, Vastin and the other developer (excuse my memory but I couldn't remember his name off the top of my head) have been making genuine efforts to take feedback from players on how to improve class mechanics (although I still criticize his lack of consulting the best hunters in the world like Drizzels, Myself, Shiirk, etc. personally about Hunter balance in T2C and PvP content), but the poor guys seem like the odd-ones out, and are already swamped with redesigning, balancing, and testing every class on their own. It would be great to see the same thing from the raid developers, and even better to actually have Faded, Unicorns, Odyssey, Avorthelier, etc. invited to Palantir to test out the new raid (FOR FREE BTW) and offer the same kind of feedback you see on the class forums, but sadly I don't think that's going to happen.

...

I was asked. And I answered.


I am a raider. And have been raidleader for over 7 years now. I did sit in front of DcOctothorpe, grilling him about group-play and instance-mechanics.

What you guys do not understand is the difference between a well organised and experienced group and people that love to group and raid, but do not have the quality, experience, gear or amount of people.

You force members of your kin to a certain playstyle that fits your own. Which also means, they have to have certain gear, certain skill rotations, certain dps, etc.
Anybody, who joins a raiding kin, will be forced into that scheme.

With that comes the experience as a well coordinated team. You know exactly, what everybody else in the group will do.

It works, no doubt about it.


I think, it's boring.

I rather have a group of people that want to learn. And "use" them, according to their abilities, pushing them a little further, anytime, we do something together. I rather include weaker players in a raid instead of telling them, they are not good enough and coordinate them accordingly. I give instructions rather than orders.

And this probably represents the player base more, than you claim you do.

Quite frankly, I think it is very arrogant, that you call yourselves the best players/ best kins and cry out like a child for not getting enough attention because of that. Yes, you are good. Yes, you are succesful. But your playstyle and raiding style in no way represents the majority of players. For one reason: Most kins died and people need to pug in order to raid. Which means, usually groups, that do not know each other very well and therefore need time and probably many wipes to adjust. Another reason: If I put too much pressure on people that are not used to it, they make mistakes. The more mistakes, the bigger the chance to wipe. This is freetime. Free time, to enjoy without work and pressure.





That said, yes, I do like challenging content. Yes, I like bug free content. And no, I do not like lootboxes and instance locks. And by now, I too, hate the grind.


Dear Devs, I do not think, there is only one way to create an even pace for all players. What about that suggestion, that was made here before: Have certain instances have certain drops of items. Like with class items years ago. With no locks.


Or, if you want to keep locks and ashes, make it available to more instances. Why not have ashes from the loot in the featured instances and put a lock on them? And not just the "maybe" 40 from the boxes you get for completion. At the same time, you could lock gear, available from ash, behind a T1, T2 or T3 barrier, like it was for Tower of Orthanc.


AND, dear Severlin, there is a huge difference between opening a lootbox and opening an instance-chest. The first I got doing the same, face rolling, boring stuff two days in a row, the other I got for achieving something with a group. Through coordination and teamwork. And believe me, the second feels way better and more rewarding.



Mahalin

[elzeqq]

I was asked. And I answered.


I am a raider. And have been raidleader for over 7 years now. I did sit in front of DcOctothorpe, grilling him about group-play and instance-mechanics.

What you guys do not understand is the difference between a well organised and experienced group and people that love to group and raid, but do not have the quality, experience, gear or amount of people.

You force members of your kin to a certain playstyle that fits your own. Which also means, they have to have certain gear, certain skill rotations, certain dps, etc.
Anybody, who joins a raiding kin, will be forced into that scheme.

With that comes the experience as a well coordinated team. You know exactly, what everybody else in the group will do.

It works, no doubt about it.


I think, it's boring.

I rather have a group of people that want to learn. And "use" them, according to their abilities, pushing them a little further, anytime, we do something together. I rather include weaker players in a raid instead of telling them, they are not good enough and coordinate them accordingly. I give instructions rather than orders.

And this probably represents the player base more, than you claim you do.

Quite frankly, I think it is very arrogant, that you call yourselves the best players/ best kins and cry out like a child for not getting enough attention because of that. Yes, you are good. Yes, you are succesful. But your playstyle and raiding style in no way represents the majority of players. For one reason: Most kins died and people need to pug in order to raid. Which means, usually groups, that do not know each other very well and therefore need time and probably many wipes to adjust. Another reason: If I put too much pressure on people that are not used to it, they make mistakes. The more mistakes, the bigger the chance to wipe. This is freetime. Free time, to enjoy without work and pressure.





That said, yes, I do like challenging content. Yes, I like bug free content. And no, I do not like lootboxes and instance locks. And by now, I too, hate the grind.


Dear Devs, I do not think, there is only one way to create an even pace for all players. What about that suggestion, that was made here before: Have certain instances have certain drops of items. Like with class items years ago. With no locks.


Or, if you want to keep locks and ashes, make it available to more instances. Why not have ashes from the loot in the featured instances and put a lock on them? And not just the "maybe" 40 from the boxes you get for completion. At the same time, you could lock gear, available from ash, behind a T1, T2 or T3 barrier, like it was for Tower of Orthanc.


AND, dear Severlin, there is a huge difference between opening a lootbox and opening an instance-chest. The first I got doing the same, face rolling, boring stuff two days in a row, the other I got for achieving something with a group. Through coordination and teamwork. And believe me, the second feels way better and more rewarding.



Mahalin

+1 to this

[Rimenuir]

I was asked. And I answered.


I am a raider. And have been raidleader for over 7 years now. I did sit in front of DcOctothorpe, grilling him about group-play and instance-mechanics.

What you guys do not understand is the difference between a well organised and experienced group and people that love to group and raid, but do not have the quality, experience, gear or amount of people.

You force members of your kin to a certain playstyle that fits your own. Which also means, they have to have certain gear, certain skill rotations, certain dps, etc.
Anybody, who joins a raiding kin, will be forced into that scheme.

With that comes the experience as a well coordinated team. You know exactly, what everybody else in the group will do.

It works, no doubt about it.


I think, it's boring.

I rather have a group of people that want to learn. And "use" them, according to their abilities, pushing them a little further, anytime, we do something together. I rather include weaker players in a raid instead of telling them, they are not good enough and coordinate them accordingly. I give instructions rather than orders.

And this probably represents the player base more, than you claim you do.

Quite frankly, I think it is very arrogant, that you call yourselves the best players/ best kins and cry out like a child for not getting enough attention because of that. Yes, you are good. Yes, you are succesful. But your playstyle and raiding style in no way represents the majority of players. For one reason: Most kins died and people need to pug in order to raid. Which means, usually groups, that do not know each other very well and therefore need time and probably many wipes to adjust. Another reason: If I put too much pressure on people that are not used to it, they make mistakes. The more mistakes, the bigger the chance to wipe. This is freetime. Free time, to enjoy without work and pressure.





That said, yes, I do like challenging content. Yes, I like bug free content. And no, I do not like lootboxes and instance locks. And by now, I too, hate the grind.


Dear Devs, I do not think, there is only one way to create an even pace for all players. What about that suggestion, that was made here before: Have certain instances have certain drops of items. Like with class items years ago. With no locks.


Or, if you want to keep locks and ashes, make it available to more instances. Why not have ashes from the loot in the featured instances and put a lock on them? And not just the "maybe" 40 from the boxes you get for completion. At the same time, you could lock gear, available from ash, behind a T1, T2 or T3 barrier, like it was for Tower of Orthanc.


AND, dear Severlin, there is a huge difference between opening a lootbox and opening an instance-chest. The first I got doing the same, face rolling, boring stuff two days in a row, the other I got for achieving something with a group. Through coordination and teamwork. And believe me, the second feels way better and more rewarding.



Mahalin

This is really well written, and very accurate. Honestly, if they take some of what both you and Bammy said, this update will have a lot of potential.

[gildhur]

• More premium shop items (potions) for a very unbalanced p2w game-play.

By "p2w" here I have to assume you mean "play to win", since you can also get those "premium shop items" by playing the game and never spending a penny in the store.

[Rimenuir]

[/LIST]
By "p2w" here I have to assume you mean "play to win", since you can also get those "premium shop items" by playing the game and never spending a penny in the store.

YoU cAn JuSt FaRm DeEdS tO gEt ThEsE sToRe OnLy PoTs So YoU dOn'T uSe MoNeY iN tHe StOrE.....

sir, I would like to point out that unless I can buy it for gold/earn from a deed/quest/instance chest.... its pay to win. You aren't actually playing if you are farming a deed for LP, you're farming for a form of currency used in a micro-transaction in a game. Doesn't matter how you get the LP, if its only available inside the online store, it is Pay to Win.

[Amennator]

Just make it easier on your selves and start selling full BiS gear in the store. That's what is eventually going to happen, may as well rip off the band-aid now.

[Arnenna]

Just make it easier on your selves and start selling full BiS gear in the store. That's what is eventually going to happen, may as well rip off the band-aid now.

Don't think they will ever do that lol. Why sell it only once, when a player may have to buy a key 20 times to get it?

[Skyfoot]

Why sell it only once, when a player may have to buy a key 20 times to get it?

^This, so much this!

[Araphorn]

With the community so divided and all over the place with their own opinions and agendas (“I’m right, you are wrong” / “This works for me, so I don’t care if it works for you” / “You are a minority, so your opinion doesn’t matter”) - I mean seriously, it’s because of nonsense like this, that they take everyone’s feedback and throw it in the dumpster.

If everyone learned to compromise and get unified for the greater good of this game, this game wouldn’t be at the place it is now. Same thing goes for Instance Locks, it’s abundantly clear that the majority of players in game and on forums don’t want them because they were never there in the past and don’t belong in a game like this which has only 2-3 instances at best per update (out of which only 1 works with limited bugs LOL). But no... too much to ask. Some people just like to butt in everywhere and divide the community further by inserting their own selfish opinions even if it harms the gameplay experience of the general populace.

If everyone and I mean everyone, took a stand and became a rock (instead of pebbles like now) against the instance locks at the very start, or heck even now in U23, do you think SSG would have the courage to neglect a community that strong? Think again.

You guys are yourselves to blame for this mess of a game, and kinda deserve the game you have now, sorry to say.

[Gothrir]

Just adding some small bits that i didn't see already posted from Beta #2

1) There are items, which are highlighted as ashable/enchantable by the new Flame of Ancalamir interface (unashable items grayed out), but in fact can't be disenchanted. These including T11 yellow essences, mounts from boxes, jewel drops from Thrang.

2) Champion dual wield animation delay still hasn't been addressed, and that's been the case for months. So far we've only gotten some kind of acknowledgement in a stream, that this is a bug, it will be worked on, and a fix should come soon (with U23). On that note, can you please add a ''Known Issues/Bugs'' section to the preview/release notes, which is up-to-date and maintained, so that we know what is actually been actively worked on? So at least there's some ''official'' acknowledgment of issues, that plague the players.

3) Mounts that were added recently to the Keeper of Mysteries in the "Steeds of the Tireless Box" are now bartered separately and drop separately from lootboxes, the box, as far as I could tell is no longer present on Bullroarer. Can you please elaborate more on that please? All this does in this current form is to lower the chance for other rewards to appear in a lootbox - other drops compete not with a single box of mounts, but with each mount separately. Another thing it does is it clutters the already cluttered interface at the KoM barterer. If we assume that previously the case was the more mounts can appear in the box (for example old festival mounts, store mounts, etc.) this will further make things worse, if the box version of distributing mounts drops is removed.

4). With no LoE on the new gear, does this make Mordor obsolete for characters 116+? I certainly don't plan of running CoS every day when the update comes, but no LoE on gear (LoE in Mordor) will make running these instance at cap now impossible. So if we decide that we want to help a lower level friend, with a quest in Mordor, or run the any of the instances/dailies/resource dungeons there, are we supposed to keep a separate gear set only for that?

[Hythel45]

Kind of ironic that the one person spewing the toxic bile is the one who is claiming that the rest of us here are toxic. o.0

[Skyfoot]

Please keep the feedback directed toward the preview, rather than turn the thread into a personal fight over your or someone else's opinion.

You are screaming and bitching vocal forum minority, absolutely toxic and negative elitists...

/shrug.

[Skyfoot]

What I imagine is Severlin's reaction when he hears the majority of players want loot-boxes removed and locks removed from 3/6 man content:

[Fureo]

Hey,

there seems to be something causing UI bugs where your screen is getting this weird black shadow as you can see in following screenshots. This bug is not happening to all of us and only the same persons are getting it. This only seems to happen in the 3 man Glimmerdeep instance. I don't know if it is a effect causing it... never payed attention... but it is not going away until you relog.

Probably it isn't showing with lower quality settings, but still it needs to be fixed

{:=[)

Thank you

[Hephburz-2]

First and foremost, this is to be a general feedback post and not another rant at SSG for x, y and z. It is becoming abundantly clear on the forums that there is this ‘make believe’ divide between casual and hardcore players. I’d like to point out why such a divide doesn’t exist and is simply a ploy by the aforementioned company to do what they like. The bottom line, we all want what is best for this game however each person’s own view differs.

In truth, casual players bankroll SSG, people whom would rather spend money then spend hours on end grinding for something, whether that be gear, deeds what have you. In order to keep this revenue coming, they have to consistently keep up with MTX (microtransactions), and thus putting the rest of us at a loss or having to choose between grinding or buying. So those of us who like to categorise ourselves as the ‘hardcore’ players should really be grateful to the ‘casuals’ for keeping the game alive. For at the end of each instance/raiding cycle when we are all bored and sat around waiting for the next update and the next instance cluster, they are the ones still playing and contributing to the game.

In the days of Moria, Mirkwood and the like – we never had these issues, we had a plentiful abundance of instances and plentiful end-game content, with there being such a marginal gear difference between 60 and 65; the Moria/Lothlorien cluster was perfect for the non-hardcore players, not being too difficult and easy to get a pug group for.

As the game has gone on the number of instances have entered into a sharp decline, this was rectified with the introduction of scaling instances – and for a time, it worked. However SSG you have failed to move scaled instances in step with the game, the instances are now a complete walk in the park for both casual players and raiders alike as well as offering nothing of value – here we have 20+ scaled instances which are utterly worthless to the community which hold so much potential if their loot was updated and difficulty somewhat adjusted (even if that means just throwing some numbers at the monsters morale & damage pools). You missed a wonderous opportunity with the Level 85 instance cluster following the release of Northern Mirkwood, instances that are primarily Dale/Lonely Mountain orientated, and they were not looked at, at all.

Alas, instead we are confined (in terms of Mordor at least, to a grand total of two instances given that the 6man is practically unplayable) to only a few rewarding instances relevant to the current end-game. In Mordor this was significant seeing as we needed LoE gear and that only came from the Mordor ‘cluster’, perhaps it will be slightly (doubtful) different for this new expansion. With this in mind, do you not understand how detrimental the locks are to the general community, and not just the casuals and the hardcore players, yes, it’s great to always be guaranteed some gear every day you run it, but for some players that means running it once and logging off due to the lack of anything else to do, which has been claimed by so many in all these other feedback threads.

If you are so opposed to removing these daily locks on instances, please allow us to obtain something worthwhile from the scaling instances (ASIDE from the featured instance rubbish).

Skirmish gear is also outdated and if I’m not mistaken still stuck at level 105? Which again is another monumental group of instances just pushed into the corner and forgotten about.

The current changes to the lootboxes are welcomed however if you are intent to keep up with this system their drop rate should be severely reduced. You would get anything from around 20-50 lootboxes alone just questing through Mordor.

TL : DR – Upgrade loot across the board in scaling instances and skirmishes if you are so content to keep the daily locks. Reduce the drop rate of lootboxes.

[Gothrir]

3) Mounts that were added recently to the Keeper of Mysteries in the "Steeds of the Tireless Box" are now bartered separately and drop separately from lootboxes, the box, as far as I could tell is no longer present on Bullroarer. Can you please elaborate more on that please? All this does in this current form is to lower the chance for other rewards to appear in a lootbox - other drops compete not with a single box of mounts, but with each mount separately. Another thing it does is it clutters the already cluttered interface at the KoM barterer. If we assume that previously the case was the more mounts can appear in the box (for example old festival mounts, store mounts, etc.) this will further make things worse, if the box version of distributing mounts drops is removed.

Today i opened the boxes i looted during levelling to 120 and this is the result (3 hero boxes, 1 traveller's):



1) One mount which is bound to character, a character that already had that mount - so that goes in the bin. (continuation on my the previous comment on the mount box)
2) random relic pack in a Hero's box, labelled 116+. What? Really? Maybe SSG doesn't know, but these relics have long been obsolete... come on...
3) Legacy replacement scroll - not imbued one - in a 116 box. Again, what?
4) Mordor housing item, that disenchant to motes (that was already touched on above), so i won't comment further.
5) One, (yes one !) +5 (yes, not even westemnet tier) hope token...

I really hope someone in SSG sees the absurdity in this and it speaks for itself, so I won't comment any further.

[xcentralx]

Whatever your 'drivers' may be, they don't change the fact these potions are ridiculously overpowered for high morale pool tanks. 40% morale heal when your morale pool is over 200k equals over 80k health restored while the crafted potion doesn't even get close to restoring half that amount (29k, right?). Either make crafted potions % based as well, or get rid of % based lootbox potions. As long as you don't do either of those things, either the lootbox potions will continue to vasty outperform the crafted potions on high morale pool characters, or if you adjust crafted potions upwards to be similar strength for those high morale pools, they will be OP for LOW morale pool characters.

How about SSG actually implements things the players WANT for this 'instance-focused' update;

• Exciting and challenging endgame group content
• Interesting and cool itemization rather than copy/pasting the same pieces of gear 20 times and increasing their item levels slightly. LOTRO is about the story and the lore, and we have had great items with story woven through them in the past. Why are we only getting boring, uninspired, poorly conceived copy/pasted loot ever since SSG took over (yes, there hasn't been any of these cool items in game since U19 except for MoL's Heirlooms from the Black Book of Mordor, which were sadly turned irrelevant after a few levels due to being low quality green gear)
• Stop building the endgame around lootboxes and then coming up with all kinds of nonsensical justifications for game decisions that were either made in a blatantly obvious attempt to push store Key sales, or made by people so disconnected from the game they have no idea how their changes actually impact the game (key dailies nerf, no more Ash in landscape becaue it was a 'Bug', all ingame keys bound to account, constantly updating lootbox tables while ignoring instance/raid loot tables)
• Remove instance locks from the handful of group content we have, or make more group content relevant

Enough is enough. Stop trying to be EA and show this game even a fraction of the love it deserves. I genuinely feel bad for the passionate devs working at SSG whose work is being overshadowed by this utter joke of an endgame 'system'.

Sincerely,

Earbold

Well said. End game instances, not dailies is what people want. (Aside from PvP fixes)

[MAWorking]

Sure, I'll start then.

Why are you not listening to a majority of players who want you to remove locks?

There is no proof that the "majority" want it removed. The loudest people here are hardly the "majority".
I dare to venture a good chunk of players (even paying players) do not come to the forums due to how toxic they are.

State your opinion, leave false claims to the politicians.

[MAWorking]

What I imagine is Severlin's reaction when he hears the majority of players want loot-boxes removed and locks removed from 3/6 man content:

This is not provable. There is nothing that says the majority want them removed. The loudest might.
State your opinion that you do not like them and move on.