Bullroarer Update 23.2 Preview #2 - Release Notes

[Byway]

THIS is really nice and I hope, SSG is doing this more often. Descriptions are sugar for the players because it is something unique of every item. Please go on doing this (and not only for set items). <3

I'm glad you like the descriptions! I'm a little concerned about expanding the text boxes for items too much, but I do like the idea of getting more flavor in there. I mostly tried to keep the descriptions pretty short (although I did get carried away once or twice). The numbers aren't really my thing, but unless I'm told otherwise my natural inclination is to go to town on the flavor side.

MoL

I'm lost for words... seriously.

If everything else like class-balancing, traits and setbounuses is completly trash, ( not to mention pvmp ) - people still care about USELESS descriptions on Items? Thats such a huge waste of time, which could be used to improve other parts of this game such as performance balancing or general class rework for the 3 skilltrees... just as an example: The Warden's blue skilltree is WAY WEAKER than other tanks, such as Captain or Guardian , and is completly useless in the upcoming raidcontent, because you are not even close to the mitigation caps of the other classes ( general difference between medium and heavy armor ). BUT that being said why do you even consider Warden as a "Tankrole" if he can be outperformed by ANY other Tank???
The same problem if you consider warden as a damage class - in U.22 ( 115 skillcap) warden was ridiculously overpowered - caused by the abyss setbonus which increased dot impulses. With this update - warden STILL NEEDS to use level 115 gear to compete with other damage classes, because his damage relies 90% on dot impulses, the new gear without that bonus, would make him even weaker AS he is right now with the lvl 115 set.. That's the stuff that should be adressed, because it is INCEDIBLY RIDICULOUS and unacceptable that a class depents only on setbounuses to be able to compete or is otherwise completly useless.

Thats just one example. Almost every other class needs to be changed in their mechanics and traits to achieve REAL BALANCE.


If still 50% of the playerbase cares about stupid descriptions and dont have any idea OR maybe just dont care about classmechanics or gamebalancing, than hey.. go for it
But it seems that even the devs dont give a #### about the other 50% of the players. They're just happy that some players like the useless descriptions on items and dont even care about criticism.

I dont want to change your mind, if you think you should name items such as : "Poop of some random dude who never gaves a f**" for example, than hey you're welcome , make the game (not) great again.

sign and off


P.S.: Main thing: Alessio is fine.

[Cordovan]

I'm lost for words... seriously.

If everything else like class-balancing, traits and setbounuses is completly trash, ( not to mention pvmp ) - people still care about USELESS descriptions on Items? Thats such a huge waste of time, which could be used to improve other parts of this game such as performance balancing or general class rework for the 3 skilltrees... just as an example: The blue skilltree is WAY WEAKER than other tanks, such as Captain or Guardian , and is completly useless in the upcoming raidcontent, because you are not even close to the mitigation caps of the other classes ( general difference between medium and heavy armor ). BUT that being said why do you even consider Warden as a "Tankrole" if he can be outperformed by ANY other Tank???
The same problem if you consider warden as a damage class - in U.22 ( 115 skillcap) warden was ridiculously overpowered - caused by the abyss setbonus which increased dot impulses. With this update - warden STILL NEEDS to use level 115 gear to compete with other damage classes, because his damage relies 90% on dot impulses, the new gear without that bonus, would make him even weaker AS he is right now with the lvl 115 set.. That's the stuff that should be adressed, because it is INCEDIBLY RIDICULOUS and unacceptable that a class depents only on setbounuses to be able to compete or is otherwise completly useless.

Thats just one example. Almost every other class needs to be changed in their mechanics and traits to achieve REAL BALANCE.


If still 50% of the playerbase cares about stupid descriptions and dont have any idea OR maybe just dont care about classmechanics or gamebalancing, than hey.. go for it
But it seems that even the devs dont give a #### about the other 50% of the players. They're just happy that some players like the useless descriptions on items and dont even care about criticism.

I dont want to change your mind, if you think you should name items such as : "Poop of some random dude who never gaves a f**" for example, than hey you're welcome , make the game (not) great again.

sign and off


P.S.: Main thing: Alessio is fine.

The people who would write item flavor text descriptions are not the same people who would do the technical systems work you want done. We appreciate that you would prefer we focus more on resolving these game mechanics issues, and that is something we are working on, but criticizing flavor text as something that was done instead of the work you prefer does not reflect an accurate picture of the process or who does what.

[Hallandil]

*snip* for Hyperbole

MadeOfLions isn't a balancing developer. So no point throwing shade and #### and them about something that has nothing to do with them. Maybe stop directing the catfight towards other players and to the other developer who-shall-not-be-named that completely refuses to engage with the community and leaves a trail of game-ruining destruction whenever they touch classes.

Yeah, some aspects of the game downright suck right now. Although posting a rant like this does nothing to help.

However, in response to the deafening silence that players have pointed out across Twitter, Discord, Twitch and this thread. I have only one thing to say:

Last Activity Nov 22 2018 09:02 AM

Have not been online the entire course of Bullroarer to respond to PMs, forum feedback nor input. No wonder +Cordvan reported "little iterative feedback" during the livestream.

[OldMadeOfLions]

Thats such a huge waste of time, which could be used to improve other parts of this game such as performance balancing or general class rework for the 3 skilltrees...

The people who would write item flavor text descriptions are not the same people who would do the technical systems work you want done.

Cord said it very well, but this comes up every now and then so it's probably worth expanding on a bit. Games (especially big ones like LOTRO or other MMOs) are made by a lot of people working at the same time. Everybody has their specialty, and they focus on that aspect of the game because that's what they're best at. MMOs are such large and complex machines that once they've been running for a few years it's hard (impossible?) to know everything about every aspect of them, even when you've been there from the beginning and have put in thousands of hours of playtime.

So we specialize. My training is as a writer, so naturally I gravitate toward the writing side of things. Story, plot, characters, Middle-earth feel and authenticity -- those things are my jam, and those are the areas in which I feel confident. When it comes to those aspects, I work fast and I work well. Outside of that comfort zone I'm not as confident: world-building has never been a skill of mine, and on the (rare) occasions where I've tried it I've generally proven it's best that I don't! Same thing for class balance and skill work: I could attempt it, but it's not something I know how to do, and it would take me many, many times longer to get anything done than it would take Vastin, for instance. And as for art, or textures, or icons? No way!

I have plenty of opinions about areas outside my sphere, of course; we all do, and we share those with the owners of those particular fiefdoms. We all want to improve the game, but we all have different tools with which to do it. I attack the problem of 'these items are not interesting enough!' with flavor text descriptions, but that's not the only avenue which is working on that problem. Bullroarer testing and feedback from you guys is another, and that's usually focused much more on the numbers in a way that I would only be able to provide for my favorite classes, leaving the others as a void.

'I can't believe you're writing item descriptions instead of improving the game engine!' might be true if it was a one-person show. But it's not, and it never has been, and thank goodness. The best thing you can do to ensure that the game improves in the avenue that you want it to is to tell us. A lot of the time, someone is just waiting for their specialty to intersect with a request like that -- that's what happened with the item descriptions this time around, for instance.

MoL

[Fingerz]

MoL, nice reaponse.

I can only speak for myself but when the opportunity to provide feedback on a specific part of he gane e.g. your favourite class , you've spent over 10 years playing as a main and give the feedback you mention to the specialist in charge of developing that class on BR for the next update and met with a wall of silence.

So yeah I get your point and take it but there are areas where the one responsible for that speciality sn't meeting expectations and it's reverberating, the item descriptions are a nice touch, good stuff.

[Sarthien90]

Cord said it very well, but this comes up every now and then so it's probably worth expanding on a bit. [...]
MoL

Responses like that - giving response now and then in general - is what makes many people feel more confident and satisfied.
Players just want to know, want to hear something about what's going on and what is planned. If more of the team would to that, there would be less rage and displeasure. In my opinion.

Thank you MadeOfLions, thank you Cordovan, thank you Vastin for trying hard to communicate frequently!

[Rimenuir]

I have only one thing to say:

Last Activity Nov 22 2018 09:02 AM

Have not been online the entire course of Bullroarer to respond to PMs, forum feedback nor input. No wonder +Cordvan reported "little iterative feedback" during the livestream.

This is very important; there is little to no communication from devs, with exceptions of Vastin/MoL/Scenario....

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

The people who would write item flavor text descriptions are not the same people who would do the technical systems work you want done.

of course


but riddle me this though:

Pretty much every update/expansion since launch, the visuals, storytelling, quests, music, art, design, etc have always been considered by an overwhelming majority of the players of all bents (raiders/casuals/questers/roleplayers/etc) to be either good or excellent, and the collective amount of major messups in those departments over 11 years can be counted on one hand
(i'm looking at you, Gondor stone-wings-on-every-building-with-6-foot-thick-20-foot-tall-walls-around-three-wooden-farm-houses and annoying-rohan-combat-music-opera-singing-BAAAAAAAAAALE...BAAAAAAAAAALE)


However, the list of major game-breaking combat/class mechanics/balancing/pvp/raid issues that come out has been getting exponentially longer since launch, and REALLY took off after the deeply unpopular Trait Trees of Helms Deep.... the list of MAJOR issues with these systems every update keeps getting longer and longer as abilities/traits fail to scale and new (completely unnecessary) systems are layercaked on top of the existing systems.


How is it that Madeoflions and the artists manage to put out a masterpieces consistently for a decade, while the core combat system of the game rots away to the point where you can auto-attack enemies to death and obviously bad changes like the one-oathbreakers-per-target-per-combat and eye-rake-cooldown-increase are even remotely considered?

If you're having problems understanding the complex game mechanics of a decade of work before you, perhaps ask the players who have been here 11 years and know the ins and outs of their classes for that entire period?

perhaps instead of dozens of quick fixes on these issues, spend extra time/effort getting it right the first time, so there doesn't have to be a class/pvp revamp/fix every update for the rest of the game.

[Tirian-Hammerfist]

I'm glad you like the descriptions! I'm a little concerned about expanding the text boxes for items too much, but I do like the idea of getting more flavor in there. I mostly tried to keep the descriptions pretty short (although I did get carried away once or twice). The numbers aren't really my thing, but unless I'm told otherwise my natural inclination is to go to town on the flavor side.

MoL

It is cool to see these descriptions of armour - but it was a shame in the last update not to see description text in the deeds (in previous areas when you hover over the completed section of the deed, or the deed itself (particularly discovery ones) it would give some cool flavour text - sadly there was none of that for U23 - could this be added retrospectively? Would be cool to see flavour text for places like the Rushgate, for example.

[auximenes]

Yeah, I think my favourite small lore text bits have been those associated with deeds.

[maartena]

This is very important; there is little to no communication from devs, with exceptions of Vastin/MoL/Scenario....

[sarcasm mode on]
"I can't believe that developers would waste their time communicating on forums and such! They need to work on rebalancing, the raid, pvmp, (insert things here), etc.... Unbelievable, no wonder the 64-bit client never gets done if all they do is talk to players!"
[sarcasm mode off]



Personally, I love the extensive communication. But there will always be people complaining anyways.

[Rimenuir]

[sarcasm mode on]
"I can't believe that developers would waste their time communicating on forums and such! They need to work on rebalancing, the raid, pvmp, (insert things here), etc.... Unbelievable, no wonder the 64-bit client never gets done if all they do is talk to players!"
[sarcasm mode off]



Personally, I love the extensive communication. But there will always be people complaining anyways.

It's almost like a dev in charge of rebalancing classes and is asking for feedback hasnt responded to any posts, any concerns, or even logged into the forums in almost a month. If you don't actually see a problem with that, I wonder if you even care about the state of the game.

Now if a dev asked for what people wanted to see regarding a certain festival and there was no response after ~8 pages of responses, I bet a lot in the community would be mad.

Why ask for feedback/create a discussion thread if you aren't going to add feedback yourself?

[Othniel]

Please reconsider the change to Oathbreaker's Shame!

[OghranNasty]

of course


but riddle me this though:

Pretty much every update/expansion since launch, the visuals, storytelling, quests, music, art, design, etc have always been considered by an overwhelming majority of the players of all bents (raiders/casuals/questers/roleplayers/etc) to be either good or excellent, and the collective amount of major messups in those departments over 11 years can be counted on one hand
(i'm looking at you, Gondor stone-wings-on-every-building-with-6-foot-thick-20-foot-tall-walls-around-three-wooden-farm-houses and annoying-rohan-combat-music-opera-singing-BAAAAAAAAAALE...BAAAAAAAAAALE)


However, the list of major game-breaking combat/class mechanics/balancing/pvp/raid issues that come out has been getting exponentially longer since launch, and REALLY took off after the deeply unpopular Trait Trees of Helms Deep.... the list of MAJOR issues with these systems every update keeps getting longer and longer as abilities/traits fail to scale and new (completely unnecessary) systems are layercaked on top of the existing systems.


How is it that Madeoflions and the artists manage to put out a masterpieces consistently for a decade, while the core combat system of the game rots away to the point where you can auto-attack enemies to death and obviously bad changes like the one-oathbreakers-per-target-per-combat and eye-rake-cooldown-increase are even remotely considered?

If you're having problems understanding the complex game mechanics of a decade of work before you, perhaps ask the players who have been here 11 years and know the ins and outs of their classes for that entire period?

perhaps instead of dozens of quick fixes on these issues, spend extra time/effort getting it right the first time, so there doesn't have to be a class/pvp revamp/fix every update for the rest of the game.

I agree with your sentiment of great storytelling / world building and poor mechanics, although mechanics are not the sole victim. Performance/lag remains a loudly ignored thing and the pvp crowd remains as vocal as always.

That aside, I don't think it is fair to say the team doesn't understand the game mechanics, I think they are having trouble managing it. I also think the approach Vastin has explained several times is unavoidable: start by making the system more manageable, and build from there. You can't manage a system consisting of a zillion band-aids.

What they are trying to do now is to rationalize stuff like stat, skill and item progression, so stuff can be largely generated, instead of manually built. It is a necessary first step. It is sadly also one that is sure to pop up side effects in unexpected places. To counter that they have a few tools available: progression rules, item rules, skill and trait design. Those all interact, so it is pretty unlikely you will be able to predict the exact outcome. An then there's us, players, coming up with unexpected strategies, builds and exploits. It is actually impossible to predict the outcome.

So we'll need iterations.
You can't get this right first time. You give it your best shot, see how things interact and try again. No one will be able to predict how many rounds are needed, although budgets could dictate a limit. And it will take quite some time, because there isn't the capacity to give each class a pass each update. So yes, during this process you could find yourself in a spot where you're severely under or over powered/equipped/whatevered, and be there longer than you would like.
In the long term, the game will end up a lot better for this. And hey, they are thinking about long term! That's a good sign, isn't it?

As a software designer with some years behind my belt, I have been wondering for years how long they were going to postpone this. I'm glad they don't anymore. It is not going to be painless and yes, it would have been x squared times easier x years ago, but better late than never.

[Sashra]

[*]Captain - Oathbreaker's Shame is now only useable once per target in a single combat.

WHY? There is no reason for this. It's an important mechanic of this in the game, to time it with dps, time it with other captain, time it with tank aggro etc etc. It affects all classes in one way or another. Do not change this please.
Also, give us more standard LoE please. For many it's hard to play the mordor instances because of this.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

I don't think it is fair to say the team doesn't understand the game mechanics....

Then why do they even attempt to put in something so OBVIOUSLY and hilariously bad as the OB change? Its an obviously bad idea to anyone who is even remotely in-tune with endgame content (something the change was meant to alter).

You can't manage a system consisting of a zillion band-aids.

and yet they continue to do just that... the recent changes are an ATTEMPT to universalize everything on a common progression curve, but it is unfinished and fails utterly in what it is attempting to do. Instead of letting Palantir chew on it for a few more months, they release the half-baked band-aid to live, as always.

You can't get this right first time.

Actually you can... you can NOT release half-finished class updates/revamps onto live, and instead plan it all out in detail, do some actual calculations, and then let the Palantir people test it until it is a finished product....

If you release trash onto live, you firstly discourage player investment (because who knows, next update your class might become useless due to unfinished changes), and secondly, you gain a reputation for being awful, which means when you do eventually claim to have bought balance and quality, people are less likely to believe you.

[WhiteWolf21x]

Then why do they even attempt to put in something so OBVIOUSLY and hilariously bad as the OB change? Its an obviously bad idea to anyone who is even remotely in-tune with endgame content (something the change was meant to alter).

and yet they continue to do just that... the recent changes are an ATTEMPT to universalize everything on a common progression curve, but it is unfinished and fails utterly in what it is attempting to do. Instead of letting Palantir chew on it for a few more months, they release the half-baked band-aid to live, as always.

Actually you can... you can NOT release half-finished class updates/revamps onto live, and instead plan it all out in detail, do some actual calculations, and then let the Palantir people test it until it is a finished product....

If you release trash onto live, you firstly discourage player investment (because who knows, next update your class might become useless due to unfinished changes), and secondly, you gain a reputation for being awful, which means when you do eventually claim to have bought balance and quality, people are less likely to believe you.

The amount of testing needed for stat changes and game balance is too large for the dev team + Palantir to do properly, and this isn't just a SSG thing either. Even Blizzard with its 200+ dev team and multi-million dollar budget struggles with core game systems. They put all of their content on Public Test Realms for months, and WoW still has balance and stat issues. I'm sure if you look at other MMo's as well, you'll find issues with balance and such. Its a never ending uphill battle.

In SSG's case, they simply don't have the manpower to do complete overhauls to game systems all at once. Just look at Vastin. He went from working on a stat change to Beorning work. And once he is done with that, he will probably move onto PvMP fixes or LI revamp. Ideally he would work on the stat change until its done, but I don't think the player base is patient enough for that.

Its also easier for landscape people to make quality content because they are starting from scratch (for the most part) and they have plenty of reference material to look at when designing a new zone. Systems people are always adding on to existing work, which can be especially tricky if some of that work is not your own.

As for the OB change; As a skill, it is the correct choice in terms of balance. Maybe increase it to 50% damage and make it last 15s? However, if its the only thing redline cappy has to offer then they should rethink this change.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

The amount of testing needed for stat changes and game balance is too large for the dev team + Palantir to do properly

Then perhaps they should work on getting their existing systems in order instead of adding new ones (see: mounted combat, epic battles, essences, imbuement, Light of Elendil, beornings, dozens of itemization overhauls - some within months of each other)

In SSG's case, they simply don't have the manpower to do complete overhauls to game systems all at once.

No one is asking for a complete overhaul... in fact, some actual stability would be welcome. People are asking for things to actually be fixed... as in, the core underlying issues that everyone is aware of and complaining about are actually addressed, instead of getting resurfaced with superficial rubbish that no one asked for.

Just look at Vastin. He went from working on a stat change to Beorning work. And once he is done with that, he will probably move onto PvMP fixes or LI revamp. Ideally he would work on the stat change until its done, but I don't think the player base is patient enough for that.

The playerbase is plenty patient, especially when devs explain what is going on and communicate that they are going to spend some time actually focusing and making sure its at least a passable product... when the devs tell the players what they are doing, it shows the players that the devs are actually working on the problems that people see... if the devs don't communicate, people get impatient because it seems like they are just ignoring the problem.

Jumping from problem to problem leads to bad/sloppy solutions for everything, and, once again, leads to players not wanting to invest time/effort into the game because their class might get nerfed into the ground or another class with the same role can be buffed to the sky overnight, and they lose their spot in groups

[Thurinuor]

My training is as a writer, so naturally I gravitate toward the writing side of things. Story, plot, characters, Middle-earth feel and authenticity -- those things are my jam, and those are the areas in which I feel confident.

And the community loves your creations so much! The Bingo things, the cool stories, all the little things that make us feel that middle earth is alive. Thank you for that! <3

[WhiteWolf21x]

Then perhaps they should work on getting their existing systems in order instead of adding new ones (see: mounted combat, epic battles, essences, imbuement, Light of Elendil, beornings, dozens of itemization overhauls - some within months of each other)

No one is asking for a complete overhaul... in fact, some actual stability would be welcome. People are asking for things to actually be fixed... as in, the core underlying issues that everyone is aware of and complaining about are actually addressed, instead of getting resurfaced with superficial rubbish that no one asked for.

The playerbase is plenty patient, especially when devs explain what is going on and communicate that they are going to spend some time actually focusing and making sure its at least a passable product... when the devs tell the players what they are doing, it shows the players that the devs are actually working on the problems that people see... if the devs don't communicate, people get impatient because it seems like they are just ignoring the problem.

Jumping from problem to problem leads to bad/sloppy solutions for everything, and, once again, leads to players not wanting to invest time/effort into the game because their class might get nerfed into the ground or another class with the same role can be buffed to the sky overnight, and they lose their spot in groups

The time to fix/maintain existing systems was before the others were implemented and has long since passed. Its one of the main reasons why Lotro is in the position it is now. Not reinvesting into the game is probably the worst decision Turbine has ever made. Could you imagine if Turbine hired 50-100 more developers and kept the hardware up to date? Lotro would be in the top tier of mmo's. Sadly its not.

A lot of the issues need complete overhauls though. Almost every issue with this game is covered with dozens of band-aid fixes and in order to actually fix them you have to remove all the band-aids and deal with the source. And they are all interconnected as well, with LI's and itemization affecting class balance and each other. As for stability, nothing has really changed in the game the 6 years I've been playing, at least compared to the other MMO's I've played.

I disagree that the player base is patient. The raiding community is non existent in this game because there are no raids. A key reason the game went F2P back in 2010 was because of a year long content drought between Mirkwood and Enedwaith. If SSG announced that there would be no new content for the next 9 months because they wanted to focus on fixing core issues, the player base would slowly slip away until the only ones left are Tolkien loyalists. Content is one of the "Three C's" of mmo's. It doesn't matter how balanced and fixed a game is if there is nothing new to kill every 4-6 months. If there is no content, the game would die.

I do agree that SSG could/should spend their limited time better. Spreading a team this small over 5-10 projects at once just makes each one poorer in quality. Even though I've enjoyed things like Thrang, that time would have been better spent elsewhere. But at the same time, there is only so much SSG can do. The game has so many issues, on top of content and player requests that its nearly an impossible task. Unless of course a millionaire buys the game, or you acquire a time machine.

[Fingerz]

It's true there are many systems that need work and SSG can only target pockets at a time.

Issue at the moment though is that the Burglar class is being targeted in the BR update but there has been no iteration from the SSG team following feedbacks from what was put in the first BR pass. Even when it's been highlighted that one of the changes namely the Burg dot and dmg increase has not made it to any of the BR updates even though it's in the notes.

Then last week we're told this Burg update is going onto live this week, as far as we know without any iteration from first BR pass...

[ENDrain]

Captain - Oathbreaker's Shame is now only useable once per target in a single combat.

Out. Of. Touch.

First, where's Captain Feedback thread? Such a "minor change" doesn't need a whole thread, is that it? Sweet Eru...

Why this change is delirious:

1. Other classes' "ultimate" skills don't have such restriction.
   I could've stopped here.
   
2. Red Captain's skill rotation is not much as it is, and now you want to make it one skill shorter.
   
3. Oathies is the skill that makes Captain what he is. If you want to change it, PLEASE DON'T, YOU SUCK HARD AT BALANCING CLASSES. Heavy armour Beornings, for Frodo's sake.
   If you limit Captain's ability to spam Oathies on CD, you'll make him much less desireable in a raid setting. On a 10kk Morale boss, another DPS' damage is going to be higher than a single-Oathied Cappy's overall damage bonus.
   
4. Sometimes Cappy accidentally throws Oath at a wrong mob/at a boss at wrong time. Sometimes Oath is followed by a raid-wide stun that makes Oath more or completely wasted. By enabling this restriction you are going to punish Cappy hard for mistakes. No other class has such punishments.
   
5. Where did you even find the INSPIRATION!? But I know you long enough and think I know exactly the answer: you needed a crutch for some bug in the raid that you are too lazy to fix properly. So here you are! Let's break one of if not the only class that works prolerly.

[Raymore]

Well this Oathbreakers change is effectively placing an immunity on the target from getting the Skill applied again during that combat. What if instead the immunity is for only for a period of say 90 seconds instead. Would that work for these longer fights? It would also seem to get around the problem with the Old Pelennor Armour set bonus cooldown reduction as it is not a cooldown on using the Skill. You could still use two Red Captains alternating OB between them to recharge the 3 minute cooldown. I'm not aware of what the cooldown reduction is from those deprecated Pelennor Sets. This would allow an OB every 90 seconds.

[Saruman_Of_Numbers]

I disagree that the player base is patient. The raiding community is non existent in this game because there are no raids. A key reason the game went F2P back in 2010 was because of a year long content drought between Mirkwood and Enedwaith. If SSG announced that there would be no new content for the next 9 months because they wanted to focus on fixing core issues, the player base would slowly slip away

but as cord and MoL pointed out, content isn't made by the same devs... Vastin doesn't make the instances or the quests or the landscape or art... those are made by other people.

The people who work on instances/quests/landscape/lore could continue to put out content while the systems devs work on a longer timetable to actually get things done right.

[CaerArianrhod]

Wardens can buff themselves already over 70% mitigation? This is not true, warden's mitigation cap is 65% and you can't achieve that much so easy, you will start fight with 58%, with no damage source reduction (-%incomming damage), low avoidance buffs and on top of that we have no panic skill, so we are very vulnerable in begining of fight.

Wardens do not get anywhere near 70% mitigation without defiant challenge.

"Buffing themselves" ... wrong wording on my site.
But a warden can go 70% and above. Just a quick test with a simple group setup (Capi. Mini and me), and as you can see (on Light of Earendil) i didn't changed everything on my thank warden yet, so i could go for more with a bit of gear change.
you can achieve the mitigations (of course in a group and) with 3 or 4 gambits, which you should use anyway. see this thread for example: https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthr...65#post7881765